Charlie provides overall leadership and direction for Celestis. He is an internationally recognized pioneer of the commercial space age. In the early 1980s, he served as Vice President of Government Relations for Space Services, Inc. of America – the team, under the direction of Mercury 7 astronaut Deke Slayton, that launched the first privately funded rocket into space, the Conestoga 1.
In 1994 he co-founded Celestis, Inc. and led the team that launched the first memorial spaceflight – the Founders Flight in 1997. Under Charlie’s leadership, the company has accomplished 17 memorial spaceflights to date, including – at NASA’s request – honoring the late Dr. Eugene Shoemaker by placing his remains at the Lunar South Pole.
He has been honored by the National Space Society, the Space Frontier Foundation, and Space News described him as “a pioneer on the cutting edge of commercial space.”
Charlie attended Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and served as a faculty member of the Georgetown Graduate School, where he co-authored the NASA-funded book, Social Sciences and Space Exploration, nominated for the prestigious Blue Pencil award. He is regularly profiled in global media, has testified before Congress on numerous occasions, and was a member of President Reagan’s White House Working Group on Space Commercialization.
