Robert D. Richards is a Canadian-born space entrepreneur. He is co-founder and CEO of

Moon Express Moon Express (MoonEx; vehicle model prefix: MX) is an American privately held company formed in 2010 by a group of Silicon Valley and space entrepreneurs. It had the goal of winning the $30 million Google Lunar X Prize, and of ultimately mining th ...

, Inc., a U.S. company partnered with

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and developing robotic spacecraft to provide low cost access to the Moon for science, exploration and commerce. He is also the founder and former CEO of Odyssey Moon Limited, an

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

based commercial lunar enterprise and the first official contender in the $30M

Google Lunar X PRIZE The Google Lunar X Prize (GLXP) was a 2007–2018 inducement prize space competition organized by the X Prize Foundation, and sponsored by Google. The challenge called for privately funded teams to be the first to land a lunar rover on t ...

competition. From 2002-2009 he was the founding Director of the Space Division at Optech Incorporated, providing advanced lidar systems for spacecraft operations and planetary exploration, including NASA's Mars Phoenix Lander and OSIRIS-REx missions. In 1987 Robert Richards founded the

International Space University The International Space University (ISU) is a higher education institute headquartered in Illkirch-Graffenstaden, a suburb of Strasbourg, France. It is dedicated to the discovery, research, and development of outer space and its applications f ...

(ISU) together with Todd B. Hawley and

Peter Diamandis Peter H. Diamandis ( ; born May 20, 1961) is an American engineer, physician, and entrepreneur. He is best known as the founder and chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, and the cofounder and executive chairman of Singularity University. He is ...

and he served as the university's first Associate Administrator for Strategic Planning. He chaired the board's administrative and strategic planning committees during ISU's first phase of development. In 2005 Robert Richards received a Doctorate of Space Achievement (honoris causa) from the International Space University for “distinguished accomplishments in support of humanity’s exploration and use of space.” Robert Richards co-founded the

Students for the Exploration and Development of Space Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) is a non-profit international student organization whose purpose is to drive space advocacy of space exploration and development through educational and engineering projects. Hist ...

(SEDS) as a student together with Todd B. Hawley and

in the 1980s. After coining the term "Space Generation", symbolizing a common bond among people born since the beginning of the space age, Robert Richards also co-founded the Space Generation Foundation with Hawley and Diamandis, now succeeded by the Space Generation Advisory Council. In 2008 Robert Richards joined

Ray Kurzweil Raymond Kurzweil ( ; born February 12, 1948) is an American computer scientist, author, entrepreneur, futurist, and inventor. He is involved in fields such as optical character recognition (OCR), speech synthesis, text-to-speech synthesis, spee ...

and others in the founding of

Singularity University Singularity Education Group (using the public names Singularity Group, Singularity University or SingularityU) is an American company that offers executive educational programs, a business incubator, and business consultancy services. Although t ...

, an institution based at the NASA Research Park in Silicon Valley, California, focused on graduate and executive level education about exponentially advancing technologies. Robert Richards remains an active supporter of these organizations.

References

External links

Robert D. Richards' personal website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Robert D. Living people Canadian aerospace engineers Year of birth missing (living people)