Jim Muncy

A long-time leader in the space advocacy community, Muncy co-founded the Space Frontier Foundation in 1988 and served as its Chairman of the Board for six years. Earlier he had served on the Board of Directors of both the National Space Society and the L5 Society. Muncy has worked in multiple facets of space policy and advocacy, beginning his career in space policy in 1981 as a staff advisor in the Office of Congressman Newt Gingrich, where he helped Mr. Gingrich co-found the Congressional Space Caucus and develop visionary space policy legislation and initiatives. Muncy later worked in the US House of Representatives, serving on the Professional Staff of the House Science Committee’s Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee. In addition to being Chairman Dana Rohrabacher’s staff designee, Muncy held the lead responsibility for issues and programs such as reusable launch vehicles, human space flight commercialization, military space technology, export control reform, range modernization, and future NASA programs.

In 2000, Muncy founded PoliSpace, an independent space policy consultancy, to help space entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs succeed at the nexus of business, public affairs, and technology. This work prepared him to lead two successful industry lobbying efforts in 2004 and 2005: winning enactment of the Commercial Space Launch Amendments Act of 2004 (P.L 108-492), and securing an amendment to the Iran Nonproliferation Act to allow NASA to buy commercial space goods and services with Russian content.

Muncy holds an MS in Space Studies from the Center for Aerospace Sciences at the University of North Dakota and a BA from the University of Virginia, where he was an Echols Scholar.