James C. Bennett

James C. Bennett

Head of Spacecraft Business Unit and Board Director

James C Bennett is an internationally recognized space technology and space commercialization policy veteran.  In recent years, he consulted on commercial space flight and space applications, as well as project development in space and other high technology enterprises.  His notable achievements include:

• Being recognized as a Space Fellow with The Economic Policy Center, London.
• Co-founding two private launch ventures (Starstruck, Inc. and the American Rocket Company (AMROC)) that revived hybrid rocket propulsion technology now used in Virgin Galactic and Sierra Nevada Corporation space vehicles.
• Serving on the 1984 White House Task Force on Space Commercialization.
• Serving on the U.S. Secretary of Transportation’s Commercial Space Transportation Advisory Committee (COMSTAC).
• Testifying before the U.S. Congress several times on the subject of space commercialization.
• Developing human commercial spaceflight and launch site regulations in the United Kingdom.
• Member of the British government’s Spaceplane Regulation Workshop process.
• Working with the U.S. executive and legislative branches to create regulatory and policy approaches for commercial spaceflight.

He has been active in international venture capital and enterprises.  Within the past ten years he has consulted on commercial aeronautical and various technology space topics for a number of private and governmental clients, including:

• Reason Foundation
• Resources for the Future, Inc. (as Co-Principal Investigator on a NASA contract)
• XCOR Aerospace,
• AirLaunch LLC
• HMX, Inc.
• Laramie (WY) Regional Airport Board
• Wyoming Technology Business Center (an incubator of the University of Wyoming)
• Alaska Aerospace Corporation (operator of the Kodiak Launch Complex, which is the United States’ only non-federal orbital launch facility)

In prior years his clients have included:

• ECON, Inc. (on contract to the U.S. Air Force)
• NASA Stennis Space Center (as part of the Earth Observation Commercial Applications Program)
• United Space Alliance
• Astrotech Space Operations

Bennett has also written extensively on technology, culture, politics and society, which have included being a columnist for United Press International.  His most notable larger works include:

• Lessons from NORAD, Space Policy Institute, George Washington University (2010)
• Space, Britain’s New Frontier, Economic Policy Center, London (2010)
• The Economics of Space: An Industry Ready to Launch (co-authored with Jeff Greason), Reason Foundation (2019)
• The Anglosphere Challenge, published by Rowman & Littlefield (2004)
• America 3.0 (co-authored with Michael J. Lotus), published by Encounter Books (2013)

Jim Bennett is a co-founder and a continuing Board member of the Foresight Nanotechnology Institute, and has served on the Board of Directors and Policy Committee for the National Space Society.