![]() Robert Citron was born on September 14th 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. to develop a new, modular design for a commercial lunar transportation vehicle. In 2004, in response to the NASA announcement that the US would pursue a lunar base, he co-founded Lunar Transportation Systems Inc. Citron was able to produce two Spacehab modules for a combined 150 million USD, instead of the 1.2 billion USD estimated by NASA.Ĭitron went on to pioneer many commercial space enterprises: in 1993, Citron co-founded Kistler Aerospace, with the intent of developing a reusable commercial launch vehicle capable of reaching low-earth orbit and resupplying the International Space Station. With Spacehab, Citron also proved that the private sector was capable of producing flight-capable space hardware much more inexpensively than the public sector. Although NASA felt it would be too risky to carry human passengers in the module, it was repurposed to carry scientific experiments, flying on over 20 shuttle missions between 19. In 1983 he developed Spacehab, a pressurized module designed to transport human passengers in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle. While at Northrop, he became the director of the Pacific Rocket Society’s satellite tracking station, and managed to track Sputnik 1 only 48 hours after its surprise launch in 1957.Īfter launching the Smithsonian Institute for Short-Lived Phenomena in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1968, and forming Education Expeditions International in 1969, he shifted his focus to space travel, and in particular, space tourism. James Muncy, a space policy consultant in Washington DC, recalled that “the power of Bob’s ideas, technical designs and business concepts made space business, including businesses involving humans in space, more real.”Īfter graduating from Inglewood High School, Citron served in the US Air Force during the Korean War, and earned degrees in liberal arts from the University of the Philippines and aeronautical engineering from Northrop University in Inglewood. “Bob had an intense passion for opening the space frontier to humanity,” said Charles Miller, former NASA senior advisor for commercial space. Citron, aerospace engineer and pioneer of space tourism and space privatization, died on January 31st at his home in Bellevue, Washington from complications of prostate cancer. ![]()
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