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| ZERO-G
(www.zerogcorp.com) Byron Lichtenberg and I first started talking about creating ZERO-G in May 1993 at a space conference in Huntsville, Alabama. I now serve as the Chairman, co-Founder and CEO of the company. Back in 1993, I was sure that Space Tourism was the only engine that was going to open space in the near term and Byron had some previous experience renting NASA's KC-135 for scientific clients. Together we set out on a 10 year journey to create the first commercial FAA approved parabolic flight company. We had no idea how long it would take! The journey was long, fun and many times very frustrating. We had countless meetings with the FAA trying to convince them that the operation was safe. In December 1993 we succeeded in getting a letter from Bill White at the FAA telling us that getting the approvals we needed would be possible... but then the ValuJet crash began a series of changes within the FAA that would subsequently make it really difficult for us to move forward. No one wanted to take the chance. The fact that NASA and the Air Force had a 40+ year record of safe operations didn't matter... certain lawyers at the FAA could only focus on the fact that clients were 'taking off their seat belts, floating around, while the aircraft was in a 50-degree dive towards the ground!' We were turned down by the FAA on many occasions for not having all of the technical, policy or legal documents in order - even though we thought they were. I remember after one particularly frustrating series of meetings, I was ready to propose that we form a new religion (the Religion of ZOG for ZerO-G) that involved experiencing weightlessness as part of the prayer ritual and then going back to the FAA to make our request based on religious freedom! Luckily we never had to go that route. A lot of hard work by a significant group of people was required to make ZERO-G successful... what I like to call, "an overnight success after 10 years of hard work!" In addition to Byron and myself, the ZERO-G team of shareholders and key consultants also includes (or included): Ray Cronise, Bob Williams, Mike McDowell, Gloria Bohan, Cindy Kaarid, Guy Gardner, Ted Ellett, Bill Elder, Erik Viirre, Eric Anderson, Clayton and Dito Hamilton, Bill Wagner, Alan Ladwig, George Whitesides, Robert Ward, Linda Schiffer, Rick Searfoss, Mike Mahaffey, Cliff Denton and many of our key investors. Peter H. Diamandis |
