George Whitesides is the Executive Director of the National Space Society, the largest space advocacy group dedicated to the creation of a spacefaring civilization. NSS has approximately 20,000 supporters and more than 50 chapters around the world. Founded in 1974 on the principles of Werner von Braun and Dr. Gerald O'Neill, NSS seeks to promote change to advance the day when humans will live, work and play in space.

Whitesides began his career at Orbital Sciences Corporation as special assistant to the president. Since then, he has served as Vice President of Marketing for Zero Gravity Corporation, a private space-tourism company, and Director of Marketing for Blastoff Corporation, a space-experience company funded by film and technology leaders.

 

He is an appointed member of COMSTAC, the official advisory committee to the Department of Transportation on space transportation issues.  He has also served on the Board of Trustees of Princeton University, and currently serves on the board of the Space Generation Foundation. 

He has focused on bringing new constituencies into the space community via pioneering outreach and education projects, and by building media coverage of space outside traditional venues. For this work, he has been featured on MTV and NPR.

Whitesides is the co-founder of Yuri's Night, a global celebration of space that includes thousands of celebrants each year around the world. He is also the founder of Permission to Dream, a global space-education program focused on astronomy. Permission to Dream has donated telescopes and astronomy materials to disadvantaged children in 16 countries to date.

A Fulbright scholar, Whitesides received his graduate degree in remote sensing and GIS from Cambridge University, and his undergraduate degree in public and international affairs from Princeton University with honors.

 

Whitesides maintains an active speaking schedule, includings talks at the annual convention of the National Society of Black Engineers, the FAA's Space Transportation division, the Arthur C. Clark Awards, the ORBIT Awards for Space Tourism, Cambridge University, Princeton University, and local schools.  Internationally, he has presented at UNESCO headquarters in Paris and at events in other spacefaring countries like Brazil, China and Russia. 

An active writer and commentator on space and exploration issues, Whitesides has been interviewed on NBC, CNN, Fox News, VOA, and many other media outlets, as well as contributing comment to NPR, Space News, Space.com, and the Planetary Report. He was the co-recipient, with Loretta Hidalgo, of the 2001 Permission to Dream award.

Whitesides is a licensed private pilot and certified parabolic flight coach, with over 200 parabolas.  His other interests include architecture, photography, ice hockey and mountaineering. In 2000 he made a successful ascent of Aconcagua, the highest peak in the western hemisphere.