George T. Whitesides
Executive Director
National Space Society

George is the Executive Director of the National Space Society.  NSS is dedicated to the promotion of human spaceflight and exploration, as well as to space education and development.  The organization counts approximately 20,000 member-subscribers around the world, and was founded in 1974 by Apollo architect Dr. Wernher von Braun and broadcaster Hugh Downs.

With strong support from Meade, Whitesides co-founded the global astronomy education program Permission to Dream in 2002.  PTD has donated over 60 telescopes to disadvantaged students and has local presence in 16 countries.

With Loretta Hidalgo, Whitesides began Yuri’s Night, a global celebration of space that includes thousands of celebrants each year around the world.  Held on April 12, Yuri’s Night commemorates the twin anniversaries of Yuri Gagarin’s first human spaceflight and the first space shuttle launch, exactly twenty years later.

In 2004, Whitesides was selected by Space News as one of twelve ‘People to Watch’.  Whitesides is a member of COMSTAC, an advisory committee to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.  He has served on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University, and currently serves on the board of the Space Generation Foundation.  

Whitesides began his career at Orbital Sciences Corporation as executive intern and subsequently special assistant to the president. Since then, he has served as Vice President of Marketing for Zero Gravity Corporation, a private space-tourism company, and Director of Marketing for Blastoff Corporation, a space-experience company funded by film and technology leaders.

A Fulbright scholar, Whitesides received his graduate degree in remote sensing and Geographical Information Systems from Cambridge University, and his undergraduate degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University.

Whitesides is a licensed private pilot and certified parabolic flight coach.  A fan of hiking and the outdoors, he has summitted Aconcagua, the highest peak in the western hemisphere.  In the summer of 2005, Whitesides and his fiancé Loretta Hidalgo announced that they had arranged to celebrate their first honeymoon onboard Virgin Galactic’s suborbital spaceflight service.