Jeff Greason
National Space Society Board of Governors
Jeff Greason is a commercial space entrepreneur and innovator with over 20 years of experience in all aspects of the commercial space transportation industry. He is chief technologist of Electric Sky and chairman of the board of Tau Zero Foundation. At Electric Sky, he has invented technologies for the transmission of wireless power and its use for propulsion and other purposes. At the not-for-profit Tau Zero Foundation, he has identified high-leverage technologies for advanced space propulsion projects applicable to interstellar flight and solar system exploration.
Jeff was a founder of XCOR Aerospace and served as its CEO from 1999 to early 2015, after which he served as chief technologist until late 2015. There, he led the development of many different reusable rocket engines and two rocket-powered piloted aircraft, demonstrating $900/flight operating cost and an operational tempo of seven flights in one day, with 66 total flights. Prior to XCOR, he was the team lead at Rotary Rocket for engine development, and an engineering manager in computer processor development at Intel.
Jeff has been active in the U.S. regulatory regime for commercial space for nearly 20 years, initially providing public comments on FAA regulations, then membership and leadership in COMSTAC, its working groups and full committee. In 2003, Greason testified at the joint House/Senate subcommittee hearings on Commercial Human Spaceflight that addressed the transition from aircraft regulation to launch vehicle regulation for suborbital vehicles. He used the XCOR EZ-Rocket vehicle to set precedents that helped spur the development of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004, which codified a framework for a human spaceflight regulatory regime.
That regulatory environment led to a need for an industry trade association. He co-founded the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, formerly Personal Spaceflight Federation, and served as a director for many years. Jeff was a member of the Review of United States Human Space Flight Plans Committee (Augustine Committee) in 2009. He also recently co-authored, with Sarah Hoyt, a short story, “Home Front” collected in “Space Pioneers”
Jeff is an Associate Fellow of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a recipient of the Space Pioneer Award for Entrepreneurial Business from the National Space Society, a Governor of the National Space Society and a recipient of an Intel Achievement Award, the company’s highest recognition. He was named a Time magazine Inventor of the Year in 2002 and holds 25 U.S. patents.
