Peter Diamandis

Peter Diamandis is the chairman of the X Prize Foundation, an organization dedicated to opening the space frontier to average people. His foundation is best known for offering the Ansari X Prize for private-sector manned spaceflight, a prize that was won in 2004 by the creators of SpaceShipOne, the world's first non-government piloted spacecraft. More recently, Diamandis has created the Rocket Racing League to spur development in aviation and spacecraft design.

Besides serving as chairman of the X Prize Foundation, Diamandis is also the CEO and co-founder of Zero Gravity Corporation, which offers parabolic weightless flights to the general public.

Notable achievements

Diamandis is considered a key figure in the develoment of the private space industry, having created many space-related businesses or organizations. Besides his X Prize and Zero-Gravity work, Diamandis also:

• founded International MicroSpace, Inc., in 1989.
  
• founded the International Space University together with Todd B. Hawley and Robert D. Richards, in 1987.
  
• created the MIT chapter of Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) in 1980.
  

Education

Diamandis received undergraduate and graduate degrees in aerospace engineering from MIT and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School.

Awards

According to his biography on the Zero-Gravity website [

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