Dr. Ira Sharlip was an early proponent of space tourism, having escrowed a space tourism deposit with the old Society Expeditions “Project Space Voyage Program.” Dr. Sharlip’s space tourism enthusiasm was noted in the August/September 1987 “Air & Space Smithsonian. Dr. Sharlip served as Senior Flight Surgeon in the United States Army during the Vietnam conflict. He is a decorated veteran of dozens of combat missions there. He continues to have a keen interest in aviation and space medicine and in international medicine. He has consulted in hospitals throughout the world and he has worked as a volunteer physician and surgeon in Kenya, Thailand, and Vietnam. In February 2004, he served as the urologist on a team of 25 doctors from the United States who traveled to Baghdad to assess healthcare needs in Iraq and to advise leaders of the Iraqi medical community on the restructuring of their healthcare system. He is an internationally recognized urologist, having spent the past 20 years at UCSF Medical Center as an Assistant Clinical Professor of Urology and in private practice. He has authored over 50 peer reviewed articles and has served as editor and reviewer for several professional journals and publications. He belongs to more than 15 professional societies and serves as an officer and/or committee member in several of them.