Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award

The Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award honors those individuals who have made significant, lifetime contributions to the creation of a free, spacefaring civilization. Their contributions can be in any form - such as scientific, technical, engineering, theoretical, written (fiction or nonfiction), political, philosophical, visionary, public relations, or mass media, economic or business, etc. or a combination of the above. Those individuals whose actions have involved personal, social, or financial risk are particularly meritorious. Do not exclude anyone from consideration if his contribution is in only one area, such as engineering.

The Award is named after author Robert A. Heinlein, in memory of him and of his many contributions to the pro-space movement. These include serving as a Director of the L5 Society for about a decade. The 2008 award will be the 12th Heinlein award given, and will be presented at the 27th International Space Development Conference in Washington DC. Living individuals, or those who have been deceased less than three years prior to the award date, and of any nationality, are eligible for this award. Previous award winners (listed below) are not eligible for this award again. Sen. John Glenn has asked previously that he be removed from consideration to give someone else a chance of getting the award.

All current NSS members in good standing are eligible to vote for this award. Each NSS chapter will also receive one ballot, which will be counted once, and then again for each additional block of 50 NSS members belonging to that chapter, up to a maximum of 4 blocks. Chpaters may use a photocopy of a ballot. Each member or chapter should indicate 3 choices of award recipients, in order of decreasing preference. The winner is selected by a modified Australian weighted vote system. Your first choice gets 4 points, the second 2 points, and the third 1 point. During the ballot counting process, the point totals of eligible candidates received for the 2004 and previous awards are decremented by 25% and then added to this year's vote point totals. The individual with the highest number of total points will receive the award and will no longer be eligible for future awards.

• 2006 - General Chuck Yeager (video of Yeager's acceptance speech)
• 2004 - Capt. James Lovell
• 2002 - Robert Zubrin
• 2000 - Neil Armstrong
• 1998 - Dr. Carl Sagan
• 1996 - Dr. Buzz Aldrin
• 1994 - Dr. Robert H. Goddard
• 1992 - Gene Roddenberry
• 1990 - Dr. Wernher von Braun
• 1988 - Sir Arthur C. Clarke
• 1986 - Dr. Gerard K. O'Neill