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Trustee

Founder and President
Space Tourism Society 


John Spencer is a space architect who has built a career that balances the design and development professions. He is a pioneer in what he calls "The Design Frontier."

In 1995 he founded the not-for-profit Space Tourism Society (STS) of which he is president. He is also the author with Karen L. Rugg of the book Space Tourism - Do You Want to Go published by Apogee books in 2004.

He has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, Space News, Popular Science, Men's Journal, Los Angeles Times, and more than 50 other magazines and newspaper articles on Space Tourism. He has appeared on "The Today Show," and on CNN, ABC, CBS News, and more than three dozen other television stations, including the Discovery Channel, PBS, Japanese NHK, and the Learning Channel.

He has won design awards from NASA for pioneering interior design work for the International Space Station (ISS) and has designed projects for the NSF built in Antarctica, and for NOAA built under water. Both science bases are still in operation.

He recently designed the new NASA Ames visitor center and the new corporate headquarters and spaceship manufacturing facility for the XCOR Aerospace Corporation.

Over the past 25 years he and his team have proven they can originate exciting design concepts and attract the investment, joint venture, and sponsorship of some of the world's most prestigious corporations. Millions of dollars have been invested directly into his concepts and intellectual properties. He creates, designs, and develops his own orbital tourism, lunar, and Mars/future-themed immersive simulation and attraction projects, while also serving as a conceptual designer for a variety of clients, government agencies and institutes.

He is the founder and president of Red Planet Ventures, Inc. (RPV), a design, licensing and branding company focused on Mars themed simulation ventures. RPV is based in west Los Angeles with easy access to one of the world’s best creative talent pools.

He went to the University of Southern California (USC) from 1974 to 1978 in the school of architecture. He received his professional degree in 1980 and masters degrees in 1982 from the Southern California Institute of Architecture.