ASD Leadership
Jonathan Dagle
ASD Board Member
NSS Policy Committee Chair
Jonathan Dagle is a technologist, futurist, and strategist. As Principal at JD Solutions, LLC, he helps organizations craft strategies and implement technologies to achieve their goals. He is a retired Air Force officer with diverse international experiences, from managing a bombing range in an allied country, to air combat operations planner, to aircrew instructor, to strategist at Air Force “Checkmate.” He participated in several war-games, managed relationships with think tanks, and consulted on several Army War College studies. Jonathan is currently Planetary Defense Policy Manager and a member of the Policy Committee at the National Space Society. He has participated in four congressional engagements, advocating space priorities, with both ASD and The Planetary Society.
Hoyt
Davidson
ASD Board Member
NSS Executive Vice President
Hoyt Davidson is the founder and Managing Partner of Near Earth LLC, an
investment bank focused on the commercial space industry. Clients include
major companies and institutional investors in those industries, and early
stage entrepreneurial firms seeking private equity capital or M&A exits and
new homes for their companies. Near Earth has also been engaged by NASA
and the U.S. Air Force for space related consulting assignments.
Hoyt received a Physics degree from MIT and upon graduation spent six
years in the Space Systems Division of Lockheed leaving as a Senior
Research Engineer to return to MIT for an MBA. At MIT’s Sloan School of
Management, Mr. Davidson was awarded the Henry B. duPont III scholarship
for academic excellence and headed to Wall Street where he rose to the level
of Managing Director at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette and later at Credit
Suisse First Boston. At DLJ in the mid-1990s, he co-founded the Space
Finance Group, the first coverage group focused on the commercial satellite
industry. This group had a #1 ranking for the sector for many years and raised
over $15 billion for commercial satellite companies. In 2002, he left CFSB to
start Near Earth LLC, to continue helping space-related companies grow. Mr.
Davidson currently serves on the Board of Lynk Global and formerly on the
Board of XO Markets Holdings, the parent of NanoRacks LLC (a Voyager
Technologies company). His non-profit endeavors include serving on the
Board of the Space Foundation, where he was Treasurer from 2016 – 2019.
He is currently the Executive Vice President of the National Space Society
and formerly served on the NASA Advisory Council for Commercial Space.
Dave Huntsman
ASD Board member
Space Frontier Foundation Advocate; NSS Member; Senior Member, AIAA
Dave Huntsman retired from NASA in 2021 after 46 years, starting as a GS-3 (below most secretaries) all the way through to and including 9 years as a Senior Executive. His first mission in NASA was the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, the last mission of the Apollo spacecraft. He was a Skylab Entry Flight Controller in Mission Control in Houston, as well as working in Mission Control and flight operations for shuttle flights 1 thru 30 in various capacities, including the Challenger accident, as well as the Challenger recovery period. He was also NASA’s lead for upper stage “launches” of satellites from the space shuttle at a time when they were a majority of shuttle payloads. As a member of the Shuttle Program Manager’s staff he was responsible for Ascent Debris Mitigation issues as well as external tank and orbiter integration activities. During early Space Station development he was head for Station System Engineering and Project Integration for the international Program where he was responsible for overall station design requirements & utilization planning for all U.S. and international Partner Projects. In later years he worked at a NASA Research Center as Chief of the Engineering Divisions, as well as in the Office of the Chief Technologist.
Michael Mealling
ASD Board member
CEO, Waypaver Foundation
President, Moon Society
Michael co-founded Masten Space Systems, was CTO of Seraph Group (a seed stage VC fund), is the CEO of the Waypaver Foundation, and the President of the Moon Society. He has helped build several startups over the years ranging from telecom consulting to social media. He received an MBA from Georgia Tech in 2011. His experience building companies and teams from scratch, and raising money for and investing in those companies, has given Michael an experienced view of both the successes and failures at every stage of building sustainable enterprises. Early involvement in the Internet and space industries has given him a unique view on what social and economic conditions need to exist for new industries to grow and thrive.
