Dr. Lee S. Valentine

Dr. Lee Valentine has been involved in space development for three decades. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Space Studies Institute since 1980 and now serves as Executive Vice President and Chairman of the Board. At SSI, he financed engineering models of the successful Lunar Prospector spacecraft. He financed the Mass Driver III test bed and, with EMEC Corp., the development of processes to refine aluminum on the Moon. He brought Prof. Yuri Raizer to SSI to perform analytic studies of laser shockdynamics in support of Prof. Leik Myrabo’s laser launch program at RPI. He started and financed the initial closed ecology life support systems development by Prof. William Jewell at Cornell University. He is an angel investor in projects needed for the human breakout and settlement of space. He has been an investor in XCOR Aerospace since 2002,and serves on XCOR’s Board of Directors. He is a director of Orbital Outfitters and was the initial outside investor. He is a general partner of V Aerospace Ventures, a private venture fund. He was the initial outside investor in SEEGRID Corp. the world's sole producer of autonomous, visually guided, industrial robots. He is the author of "A Space Roadmap: Mine the Sky, Defend the Earth, Settle the Universe", "Critical Trajectories for the Human Settlement of the High Frontier" and "Mass Drivers for Planetary Defense''. He is co author with Prof. William Jewell, of “The Engineering Trade Space for a Robust Closed Ecological Life Support System: A Suggested Technology Road Map.” He is the editor of Settling Circumsolar Space: Space Manufacturing 13. He is now managing Space Manufacturing 14: Critical Technologies for Settlement to be held at NASA Ames Research Center on Oct 29-31. He has served on the board of ProSpace America. Thirty years ago, he helped finance the successful defeat of the “Moon Treaty”. He is an advocate of the Space Frontier Foundation and a member and adviser of the National Space Society. Dr. Valentine has a Bachelor of Science from Penn State University and an M.D. from Jefferson Medical College. He is board certified in internal medicine and in emergency medicine.