Advocates
The Advocates are the heart and soul of the Space Frontier Foundation. Individuals are identified as potential Advocates based on their alignment with the Space Frontier Foundation’s vision and goals. Each year, at the Foundation’s annual business meeting (held in conjunction with our annual conference), the Advocates elect the Board of Directors for the following year. The newly elected Board then elects officers for the following year, including Executive Director, Treasurer, and Secretary. The present Advocate Coordinator is James Pura.
Each advocate comes from a unique background—from as far afield as event planning and radio talk show host to CEO and pilot. Despite their varied backgrounds, Advocates share a concrete vision of the human settlement of space. The Space Frontier Foundation’s success over its two-plus decades of advocacy can be attributed in part to the boldness and ingenuity of the Advocates. The individual and collective accomplishments of our Advocates are numerous, standing as a chronicle of progress in NewSpace.
Selected Accomplishments of Foundation Advocates
- Often hailed as the genesis of NewSpace, the Delta Clipper X project was, along with Pete Conrad, managed by an Advocate.
- Advocates financed and negotiated the lease for the first commercial space station, Mir.
- Advocates negotiated the first television commercial ever shot aboard the International Space Station (for Radio Shack) and also arranged for the first space-based World Series “first pitch,” also performed on the ISS.
- Prospace, the citizen’s space lobby was formed by Advocates and is a direct spinoff of the Foundation’s successful March Storm project, the yearly Congressional blitz.
- Numerous books on topics in space have been published by Advocates.
- An Advocate developed the rocket engine avionics for SpaceShipOne.
- Our ranks include several NewSpace CEOs.
- One of us is a space poet.
Recent developments in policy and space sciences suggest that the Foundation’s vision is closer than ever to materializing. As this new, dynamic chapter in the history of space exploration opens, our Advocates will continue to take engage with this issue on every front.
Advocate Dues
If you are an Advocate, please make your annual Advocate dues payment to help keep the Space Frontier Foundation advancing NewSpace and working tirelessly toward opening the space frontier.
2009's New Advocates Class, at Apollo 11 40th Anniversary Gala. Photo credit: Sam Coniglio.
We are transforming space from a government- owned bureaucratic program into a dynamic and inclusive frontier open to people. We are determined to convert the image held by many young people that the future will be worse than the present, and we reject the idea that the world's greatest moments are in its past. 
