Brian Barnett

M. Brian Barnett is a serial entrepreneur with 33 years’ experience in commercial space, the mobile satellite services industry, as an aerospace technologist at  NASA, and at KPMG Consulting as a management consultant.  He is Founder and CEO of Solstar Space Co., the first internet service provider for people, Internet of things and machines in space is that is developing technologies to build a Space Wide Web. On April 29th, 2018, Solstar demonstrated the first commercial two-way data and wi-fi hotspot service in space and Tweet from space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard crew capsule, using Barnett’s patent-pending technology. Mr. Barnett began his career at NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center where he provided Space Shuttle payload integration services at the Payloads Project Office.  He also provided astronaut crew training in the Mission Operations Laboratory for Spacelab missions. At Johnson Space Center, he worked in the Missions Operations Directorate, and later worked on JSC’s 1992 Strategic Plan.  He also managed a contract to document all Space Shuttle operations processes as directed by Congress after the Challenger accident. Later, as a management consultant for KPMG’s Space and High Technology group, he wrote dozens of business plans and market assessments for commercial space companies.  This is the group that very early and accurately, predicted that GPS applications would grow into the huge market it is today.  Barnett led the Team that wrote the initial business plan and helped identify the best location for the spaceport that eventually became Spaceport America in New Mexico.  Solstar Space is his third commercial space start-up.  He earned a B.S. in microbiology from the University of Oklahoma, a Masters in Administrative Science from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and is a graduate of the International Space University.  Mr. Barnett is a classically-trained rock and reggae drummer and is founder and producer of  DrumsAstro®, an organization Connecting Artists and Musicians of all Genres to Space and Space Exploration.