A real space hero for Australia

I had lunch the other day with Kirby Ikin, the president of Deep Space Industries and Managing Director of Asia Pacific Aerospace Consultants. While I was already a fan of his, I learned more about the many forays Kirby has made into the commercial space arena, and the high esteem in which he is held by the community.

 

Here is a signature Ikin accomplishment, from APAC's website: "For ten years he worked as a space insurance underwriter at GIO in Australia and in 1998 was appointed Managing Director of the newly created GIO Space [his own initiative]. GIO Space was one of the largest space insurance underwriters in the world with annual premium income of over A$175m (approximately US$110m at the time)." That's not just PowerPoint, folks.

In addition to being a highly capable businessman, Kirby is helping to spread the "gospel of space." He is the chairman of the board of directors of the worldwide National Space Society, formerly the L5 Society. He succeeded in that position none other than Buzz Aldrin. He is also organizing the biennial Australian Space Development Conference to be held in Adelaide in July.

The new ventures in off-Earth mining will be more successful for the influence and management of people like Kirby Ikin. Australia can look at him as a real space hero.