28 Facts About Jim Cantrell

Jim Cantrell was born on October 5,1965 and is an American entrepreneur, mechanical engineer and road racer.

Jim Cantrell is the CEO and co-founder of Phantom Space Corporation, which aims to build space transportation technology.

Jim Cantrell was born and raised in Yucaipa, California, and went to high school in San Jose, California.

Jim Cantrell worked on Mars exploration technologies at JPL, including Mars Rover and Mars Balloon missions.

Jim Cantrell completed his BS in 1988 and started work on his MS in mechanical engineering at Utah State University, while working as a research engineer at the University's Space Dynamics Laboratory, again focusing on Mars exploration.

Jim Cantrell joined the French Space Agency in 1990 after completing his MS.

Jim Cantrell returned to the US in 1992 to join Space Dynamics Laboratory, where he led the spacecraft systems engineering on three small satellites for the Department of Defense.

Jim Cantrell worked on various joint missile defense programs conducted between America and Russia.

Jim Cantrell was arrested while staying in Russia in 1996 due to some problems with satelite he was working on but released after a couple of weeks due to Al Gore's intervention.

Jim Cantrell was promoted to the position of director of program development in 1997.

In 2001, Jim Cantrell started independent consulting and served as the program manager for the privately funded solar sail program known as Cosmos 1.

When Musk and Jim Cantrell approached Russians, they refused to sell them rockets and Musk decided to build his own.

One of the significant projects undertaken by Strategic Space was the Light Sail project headed by The Planetary Society where Jim Cantrell served as project manager from 2008 through 2012.

In 2010, the founders of Moon Express approached Jim Cantrell seeking his help to develop a business offering commercial lunar robotic transportation.

Jim Cantrell became a member of the founding team of Moon Express and subsequently became the CTO of the company.

In 2013, Jim Cantrell was hired as the CEO of IDair, a biometric authentication technology company, to turn the company around and settle existing legal disputes.

Jim Cantrell stepped down from the position in 2014 after obtaining a $17M settlement in IDair's favor.

In 2015, Jim Cantrell approached John Garvey with a business idea to develop micro launch vehicles to service the microsatellite community.

Jim Cantrell stepped down as CEO of Strategic Space Development to serve as the CEO of Vector.

Jim Cantrell originally planned to launch its first orbital vehicle by mid 2018 but development problems delayed the first launch until mid 2020.

Jim Cantrell has described Phantom Space as wanting to be the "Henry Ford" of the space industry, referring to the company's efforts to mass produce rockets and space vehicles.

Jim Cantrell was on the Planetary Society's board of advisors from 2007 to 2012.

Jim Cantrell has served on ATLAS Space Board of Advisors, Morf3D Board of Advisors, Iceye, and York Space Systems Board of Advisors.

Jim Cantrell served on source selection panels for NASA reviewing proposals for deep space and space science missions for 15 years.

Jim Cantrell began pursuing a career in racing in 2005.

Jim Cantrell was the SCCA regional champion in Arizona in C Sports Racing in 2013 and 2014 and has been on the Arizona Region Sports Car Club of America's board since 2012 and currently serves as Regional Executive.

Jim Cantrell was the Competition Driving Instructor at Raptor Motorsports from 2010 to 2012.

The story covers how this revolution began with a band of misfit engineers and scientists; Jim Cantrell describes the events in first person narrative, detailing his early days with Elon Musk and SpaceX and how the new space economy was eventually ignited with the money and vision of billionaires such as Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Richard Branson.