• HISTORY
• PRESS ROOM
• OUR FOUNDERS
• OUR MEMBERS
• OUR PARTNERS
• FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
• BOARD OF DIRECTORS
• ADVISORY COUNCIL
• STAFF
• VOLUNTEERS
• CONTACT US

browse projects: Apophis Mission Design Competition Carl Sagan Fund for the Future Catalog of Exoplanets FINDS Exo-Earths International Year of Astronomy 2009 LIFE Experiment: Phobos Messages from Earth Observing Earth Pioneer Anomaly Planetary Microphones SETI Optical Telescope SETI Radio Searches SETI@home Shoemaker NEO Grants Solar Sailing Space Advocacy Space Information

browse space topics: 2001 Mars Odyssey Asteroids and Comets Cassini-Huygens Chandra X-Ray Observatory Chandrayaan-1 Chang'e 1 Compare the Planets Dawn Deep Impact Earth Extrasolar Planets Genesis Hayabusa (MUSES-C) Hubble Space Telescope Jupiter Kaguya (SELENE) Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) Mars Mars Exploration Rovers Mars Express Mars Global Surveyor Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Mars Science Laboratory Mercury MESSENGER Moon Near Earth Objects Neptune New Horizons Past Missions Phoenix Planetary Analogs Planetary Exploration Timelines Pluto and Charon Private Missions Rosetta Saturn Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence SMART-1 SOHO Space Imaging Spitzer Space Telescope Stardust Trans-Neptunian Objects Ulysses Uranus Venus Venus Express Voyager Weekly Planetary Radio Trivia Contest

Board of Directors

Louis D. Friedman

Executive Director, The Planetary Society

Click to enlarge > Louis D. Friedman

When Louis Friedman helped co-found The Planetary Society, he brought to his position as Executive Director a wealth of experience in the space exploration community, including 10 years at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and five at AVCO Space Systems Division. He has been a guiding force with the Society for over 20 years and remains as excited as ever about humanity’s journey into the solar system.

Friedman is a native New Yorker, raised in the Bronx and passionately committed to his hometown baseball team, the New York Yankees.

His college career began when Sputnik launched the space age. Friedman earned a B.S. in applied Mathematics and Engineering Physics at the University of Wisconsin in 1961, followed by an M.S. in Engineering Mechanics at Cornell University in 1963. He earned his Ph.D. from the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department at M.I.T. in 1971 with a thesis on Extracting Scientific Information from Spacecraft Tracking Data.

From 1963-1968, Friedman worked at the AVCO Space Systems Division on both civilian and military space programs. The following decade, 1970-1980, found him at JPL, involved in planning deep space missions. His projects included Mariner-Venus-Mercury, the Grand Tour (Voyager), Venus Orbital Imaging Radar (Magellan), Halley Comet Rendezvous-Solar Sail, and the Mars Program.

In 1978-79, Friedman went to Washington, DC as the AIAA Congressional Fellow and worked on the staff of the subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation. He frequently returns to Washington, DC to testify to Congress regarding important issues concerning the space science community and the members of The Planetary Society.

Although the solar sail never launched for Halley’s Comet, the concept of using light to propel a spacecraft intrigued Friedman so much that he wrote a book on the subject, Starsailing: Solar Sails and Interstellar Flight, and is now the Project Director for the solar sail mission created by The Planetary Society and Cosmos Studios: Cosmos I.