NewSpace Visionary was Instrumental in Furthering Plans for Lunar ISRU
The National Space Society mourns the passing of Brad Blair, a longtime collaborator with the organization. Blair died unexpectedly last week.
“Brad Blair was a longtime contributor to the vision and mission of NSS, served as a regional board member, was a familiar face at our International Space Development Conference, and was a brilliant thinker. His fascinating ideas and unique vision will be missed,” said Dale Skran, Chief Operating Officer of NSS.
Blair was a partner in NewSpace Analytics in Idaho Springs, Colorado, where he consulted on advanced mining technology, the economic uses of space mineral resources, and the analysis and modeling of emerging space market opportunities.
While a graduate student at the Colorado School of Mines, Blair researched the use of in-situ resource utilization (ISRU) technology on the Moon under a NASA research grant. He went on to perform cost estimation in support of a design reference mission for human Mars exploration at NASA’s Johnson Space Center and conducted research for NASA on topics related to ISRU technology, cost estimation, and space resource economic analysis, also at the Colorado School of Mines. Blair participated in two NASA centennial challenges, consulted widely in aerospace, and worked for a number of NewSpace startup companies. He served on the board of directors of United Societies in Space, was Chairman of the Board of the International Space Development Authority Corporation, and was a Space Frontier Foundation Advocate as well as serving as a regional board member for NSS. Blair held degrees in Engineering Geology (B.Sc. 1989), Mining Engineering (M.E., 1993) and Mineral Economics (M.Sc., 2004) from Colorado School of Mines.
“I met Brad at the NSS annual ISDC conference and had the privilege of hearing him speak on a number of occasions,” said Rod Pyle, the Editor-in-Chief of the NSS magazine Ad Astra. “He was a person of great passion regarding ISRU, and an inspiration to those who knew him. He will be sorely missed.”
