Timothy Bendel is the president of Frontier Astronautics. He received an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1997 and started his career with Lockheed Martin in Denver.   He worked there as a Rocket Propulsion engineer for over seven years on two launch vehicles and several spacecraft, three of which are destined for Mars.  As a Senior Propulsion Engineer on the Titan launch vehicle, Tim became the Principal Engineer of the Titan II Attitude Control System and received four company awards for his performance in this position.

Tim's Resume

Kristof Richmond is completing his Ph. D. this fall in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University.  His research is focused on sensing, estimation and control for exploration robotic vehicles.  His current focus is on applications of vision to underwater mapping and navigation.  While at Stanford, Kristof participated in an   autonomous, underwater robot project which visited the sunken wreckage of the USS Macon.  This work was presented at the Unmanned Submersible Technology Conference (UUST_ with his paper "Real-time visual mosaicking and navigation of the USS Macon," some of which was also featured in a New York Times article.

Kristof's Resume

Dave Hampton: For over 35 years, Dave has been closely involved in the structural design and analysis of some of the nation's most effective strategic missile systems. He has worked on the Minuteman, Peacekeeper and Titan missile systems as well as numerous defense related satellite programs.

Dave was the Lead Stress Engineer for the Targets Element of the Ballistic Missile Defense Program at Lockheed Martin Astronautics. Tasks included supervision of a stress group supporting the design/development of structural components for the modification of Trident C-4 missiles to launch simulated foreign ballistic re-entry vehicles. The stress group was responsible for extensive modeling of the entire Trident C-4 structure. 

Dave was also a Senior Stress Engineer for the Core Element of the Titan Launch Vehicle Program. He performed structural analysis on core elements of the Titan II and Titan IV programs. 

Since his retirement from Lockheed Martin last year, he keeps active with Frontier Astronautics, some home building projects and a little camping with his wife and three dogs.