Space Exploration: All That Matters

David Ashford is Managing Director of Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd, an innovative small company developing the Ascender spaceplane. He studied Aeronautical engineering at Imperial College, London, and did postgraduate research at Princeton, before being involved in major projects including Concorde, the Skylark sounding rocket, and missile and electronic warfare projects at Douglas Aircraft and BAE Systems. He has had about 20 papers on space transportation published in the professional press.