Homer Hickam Jr., NASA Engineer and Best Selling Author [website]
Founders
Marc Boucher, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer
Marc Boucher is an entrepreneur, technologist, explorer and bon vivant. He came into his own when spurred
on by his brother, he decided to start his first business in 1991 and hasn't looked back since.
Boucher is the founder of aTerra Technologies, co-founder of
SpaceRef Interactive and co-founder of the
Mars Institute, and has ideas about starting other new ventures.
aTerra Technologies focuses on Internet technologies, in particular web publishing, data gathering and
aggregation and is best known for developing original content properties and web crawlers. In 1996 the Canadian
Internet Awards Committee awarded Boucher's @Canadas.net web site, "Best Online Site" (Canada) for the year. Boucher
created Canada's first search engine, Maple Square, in 1995. In 1998 he was asked by then partner AOL Canada
to accompany them as their partner representative to testify before the Canadian Radio-television and
Telecommunications Commission's (CRTC) New Media and the Internet hearings.
SpaceRef Interactive grew out of an idea Boucher and co-founder Keith Cowing had at a meeting in Washington, DC, in
early June 1999. On October 1, 1999, SpaceRef launched with little fanfare but soon became a hit. In June of 2000 SpaceRef
announced it had licensed SpaceRef content to the Discovery Channel. Today SpaceRef is one of the leading online space
news sites comprising 14 web sites in its network and growing. SpaceRef has also begun to modestly sponsor research
by first donating the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse to the Haughton-Mars Project (HMP) in 2002. In addition
SpaceRef has been managing webcams for the HMP since the summer of 2000. Boucher himself has had the pleasure
to participate in the HMP as an Exploration Research Co-Investigator for five field seasons and has been to the high-Arctic
base three times, once in the summer of 2000, then 2002 and in 2005.
The Mars Institute is a non-profit research institute co-founded by Boucher in the fall of 2002 at the World Space
Congress in Houston. With his colleagues Dr. Pascal Lee,
Dr. Stephen Braham,
Dr. Charlie Cockell the vision of creating
an institute dedicated to the exploration of Mars became a reality. The Institue is now an important participant
in the NASA Haughton-Mars Project and continues to develop research proposals for the exploration of Mars.
Boucher lives in Vancouver, beautiful British Columbia, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics. When not working Boucher
relaxes by reading, sailing, hiking, traveling and adding to his modest collection of Japanese woodblock prints.
Marc Boucher's Blog: Nano2Sol
Keith Cowing, Co-Founder and President
Keith Cowing is trained as a biologist (M.A. and B.A. degrees) and has a
multidisciplinary background with experience and expertise that ranges
from spacecraft payload integration and biomedical peer review to freelance
writing and web site authoring.
In recent years Cowing has been the Editor and Webmaster of several highly
popular Web sites including the Astrobiology Web and the
Whole Mars Catalog - both of which
have been integrated into SpaceRef. Cowing is also the force behind
NASA Watch - a website that has earned
a world wide reputation for reporting breaking space stories first.
Science magazine credited NASA Watch for breaking the news of recent
discovery of water near the surface of Mars. NASA Watch has also been
cited multiple times in Congressional hearings for its reporting on the
International Space Station.
Cowing is also webmaster for "Genomics:
A Global Resource" sponsored by PhRMA, the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America. Cowing has been invited to speak on Internet
issues at the annual convention of the American Society for Human Genetics;
serves on several advisory committees for GROW - Genetic Resources On the
Web - an organization founded by the NIH National Human Genome Research
Institute; and serves on the Internet Advisory Panel of the Genetic
Alliance.
Between 1990 and 1993, Keith was a NASA civil servant and served as Manager
of Pressurized Payload Accommodations at the Space Station Freedom Program
Office (SSFPO). As part of his prime responsibilities, Keith served as the
Payload Accommodations Manager for the 2.5 Meter Centrifuge Facility, the
Gas-Grain Simulation Facility, the Gravitational Biology Facility, and the
CELSS Test Facility. Keith also participated in all SSF design reviews held
during 1990-93, representing the interests of the scientific payload
community. Keith was also the SSFPO lead on biospecimen containment and was
a NASA representative to the NRC Committee on Toxicology's subcommittee on
Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentrations.
Prior to his work at NASA, Keith worked for the American Institute of
Biological Sciences (AIBS) on NASA Life Sciences Division Peer review and
for the Universities Space Research Association (USRA) where he managed a
subcontract in support of the NASA Life Sciences Strategic Planning Study
Committee (a.k.a. the Robbins Committee). Keith is also a former member of
the governing board of the American Society for Gravitational and Space
Biology (ASGSB).
