Jeff Greason

Summary

Jeff Greason is a co-founder and the Chief Technologist of Electric Sky,[2] a company developing the ability to wirelessly transmit power to moving vehicles. He also serves as chairman of the board of the Tau Zero Foundation.[3]

Jeff Greason
NationalityAmerican
Alma materCalifornia Institute of Technology[1]
Known forXCOR Aerospace, Agile Aero

Career edit

Greason has been active in the development of the regulatory environment for the commercial space flight industry. He has worked with the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) since 1998, has served on the advisory group to AST, COMSTAC as a member of the working group on reusable launch vehicles (RLV) since 2000, and as an invited full member of COMSTAC since 2005. He was one of the leaders of the development of the Commercial Space Launch Amendment Act of 2004. He co-founded the Commercial Spaceflight Federation (formerly Personal Spaceflight Federation).

Previously, he was the team lead at Rotary Rocket for engine development, and earlier worked at Intel.

Greason was named a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee on May 7, 2009. Since then he has given a number of speeches on space policy and space settlement.[4][5][6][7][8]

In July 2003, Greason testified before the joint House/Senate subcommittee hearings on Commercial Human Spaceflight that addressed the transition from aircraft regulation to launch vehicle regulation for suborbital vehicles.[9]

He is one of the founders of XCOR Aerospace and was its CEO from 1999 through February 2015,[10] after which he served as chief technologist. In November 2015 Greason left XCOR with two other founders to form Agile Aero.[11][12] He was a member of the XCOR board of directors until he resigned in March 2016 and no longer has any connection with XCOR Aerospace.[13] In 2017, XCOR Aerospace went out of business after bankruptcy.

From November 2015 through July 2019[14] he served as CEO of Agile Aero, a company developing rapid prototyping capabilities for aerospace vehicles, which has since been acquired by Electric Sky.

He publishes occasional articles explaining space issues at the Tau Zero Foundation blog.[15] An article summarizing the field of interstellar propulsion and the work of the Tau Zero Foundation cites him.[16]

In May 2019 he authored an article on a new approach to space propulsion, exchanging momentum with surrounding space plasma such as the solar wind or interstellar medium to expel reaction mass while retaining the kinetic energy, to accelerate a vehicle.[17]

Starting in the summer of 2020, Greason will teach an online course through the Kepler Space Institute on advanced space propulsion.[18]

Honors and patents edit

Time magazine named Greason an Inventor of the Year in 2002 for his team's work on the EZ-Rocket rocketplane.[19] Greason holds 28 U.S. patents.[20]

References edit

  1. ^ "NASA - Jeff Greason".
  2. ^ "Electric Sky, Inc". Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  3. ^ "Tau Zero Foundation". Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  4. ^ Jeff Greason (2014). Captains of Our Fate (speech). International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS).
  5. ^ Jeff Greason (2014). Private Industry and Economic Use of Space (speech). Ideacity.
  6. ^ Jeff Greason (2012). Space Policy: The 20 Year Plan (speech). International Space Development Conference.
  7. ^ Jeff Greason (2011). A Settlement Strategy for NASA (speech). International Space Development Conference.
  8. ^ Jeff Greason (2011). Making Space Pay and Having Fun Doing It (speech). TEDx.
  9. ^ "Ensuring the Safety of Human Spaceflight". One Hundred Eleventh Congress. US Government Printing Office. 2 December 2009. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  10. ^ "XCOR Aerospace Announces Jay Gibson as new Chief Executive Officer" (Press release). XCOR Aerospace. March 16, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2015.
  11. ^ "Founders Stepping Back Marks New Phase in XCOR Lynx Development" (Press release). XCOR Aerospace. November 23, 2015. Archived from the original on November 24, 2015. Retrieved November 25, 2015.
  12. ^ "XCOR founders to stay in Midland with latest project". Midland Reporter-Telegram. December 5, 2015. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  13. ^ "XCOR Announces New Board of Directors" (Press release). XCOR Aerospace. March 30, 2016. Archived from the original on April 5, 2016. Retrieved March 30, 2016.
  14. ^ "Electric Sky Acquires Agile Aero" (PDF) (Press release). Electric Sky. July 24, 2019. Retrieved July 24, 2019.
  15. ^ "Gravity and Health". Tau Zero Foundation. May 9, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  16. ^ "The Stars Are Far: Getting There Requires Time, Tech And Public Advocacy". Forbes. August 5, 2019. Retrieved August 5, 2019.
  17. ^ Greason, Jeffrey (May 2019). "A Reaction Drive Powered by External Dynamic Pressure". Journal of the British Interplanetary Society. 72 (5): 146–152. Archived from the original on October 23, 2019. Retrieved April 20, 2020. Alt URL
  18. ^ "Jeff Greason Joins the Kepler Space Institute Faculty" (Press release). Kepler Space Institute. April 19, 2020. Retrieved April 20, 2020.
  19. ^ Hamilton, Anita (Aug 9, 2002). "Best of the Rest". Time. Retrieved 6 October 2015.
  20. ^ "US Patent Collection". Patent Database Search. United States Patent and Trademark Office. Retrieved 29 November 2021.

External links edit

  • Review of U.S. Human Space Flight Plans Committee website
  • Electric Sky official bio
  • 2014 Address to INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM FOR PERSONAL AND COMMERCIAL SPACEFLIGHT