Commercial Space Executive
Dennis Stone is a senior commercial space executive with decades of experience in investment, business and market development, international relations, program management, microgravity, and public-private partnerships.
He served two years at Vast as Vice President-Business Development and as a consultant. He led Vast’s successful proposal to NASA resulting in award of a Private Astronaut Mission.
Prior to Vast, he served 38 years at NASA. An expert in public-private partnerships, he was business lead in $1.6B of investment by NASA in commercial space capabilities. He was Project Executive in NASA’s Commercial LEO Development Program supporting Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD). He was Deputy Chair and Business Lead in the CLD phase I competition which awarded $400M+ to 3 companies and then managed NASA’s CLD partnership with Blue Origin and Sierra Space.
In 2006, he helped make history with NASA’s investment of $800M in SpaceX and later Orbital Sciences under Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). He was business chair of the COTS competitions and helped run the program which resulted in Cargo Dragon and Falcon 9 development which had a revolutionary impact on space access. The successful COTS model of investment followed by service buys was then used by NASA on Commercial Crew, Commercial LEO Destinations, and Communications Service Project (replacement of TDRSS). He has been a sought-after expert on the COTS model in and outside of NASA.
Previously he supported the International Space Station Program as Chief System Engineer of the Assured Crew Return Vehicle, Manager of Avionics Integration, and was responsible for multilateral software integration, risk management, quality, and commercialization.
He began his career designing spaceflight avionics at McDonnell Douglas, designing NASA’s Mission Control Center upgrades at Ford Aerospace, and supporting customers in NASA’s Space Shuttle Program at Rockwell International.
Mr. Stone has biotech experience as CEO of a startup pursuing a small-molecule therapeutic. He also is experienced in developing the microgravity market in bio/pharma for NASA and Vast.
Mr. Stone is founder and volunteer President of World Space Week Association, a non-profit organization which globally coordinates UN-declared World Space Week, the largest space event on Earth each October 4-10. In 2025, WSW was celebrated with some 50,000 events in 102 nations. He drove the organic growth of this international movement and supervises a small staff.
He has two Bachelor of Science degrees, in Physics and Electrical Engineering, from the University of Hawaii.
LEO Commercial Solutions LLC 