Esther Dyson is an active investor in a variety of mostly disruptive start-ups. Her portfolio of private space and air travel investments includes XCOR Aerospace, Space Adventures/Zero G (recently merged), Constellation Services, Icon Aircraft, Coastal Aviation Software and Airship Ventures. She has flown weightless on Zero-G four times, but hopes to go up again soon.

She is also the organizer of Flight School, an executive workshop for start-ups in air and space. It's in hiatus for 2008, but will resume in 2009.

On the IT side, her investments have included Flickr and del.icio.us, both sold to Yahoo! and Medstory, sold to Microsoft. Currently, she sits on the boards of 23andMe, Meetup, WPP Group, Eventful.com, Evernote, Boxbe and Yandex, the leading Russian search company.

Dyson sold her business EDventure Holdings, along with its Release1.0 newsletter and PC Forum conference, to CNET Networks in 2004; PC Forum and Release 1.0 played key roles in the early development of the PC software marketplace and the commercial Internet. Dyson left CNET at the end of 2006 and (with permission) has resumed doing business under the name of EDventure Holdings.

You can see her photos, many of them space-related, at www.flickr.com/photos/edyson.

Stephen Fleming has 13 years of private equity experience at the General Partner level. Prior to his venture capital career, he spent 15 years in operations roles at AT&T Bell Laboratories, Nortel Networks, and LICOM (a venture-funded startup).

An Atlanta native and summa cum laude graduate of Georgia Tech, Stephen returned to his alma mater in mid-2005 as Chief Commercialization Officer. His appointment led a reorganization designed to streamline the handling of intellectual property, accelerate the licensing of technology, and make the Institute's resources more readily accessible to business and industry.

Stephen is active in the "alternative space" industry; he is an investor in three private aerospace companies and is a founding member of the Space Angels Network. Mr. Fleming also serves on the Boards of Trustees for the Spiritual Living Center of Atlanta and for Tech High School, a charter high school emphasizing science, math, and technology in urban Atlanta.

Described as “the Father of Angel Investing in New York” by Crain’s New York Business and a “world conquering entrepreneur” by BusinessWeek, David S. Rose is a serial entrepreneur and Inc 500 CEO who is Chairman of New York Angels, one of the most active and fastest-growing angel investment groups in the country.

In 2001, after careers in real estate development, Internet technology and the US government, David founded Rose Tech Ventures, which has provided capital and management expertise to over five dozen promising early stage companies. Today, he is one of the country’s most active technology angel investors. Dubbed by BusinessWeek “The Pitch Coach” for his ability to help entrepreneurs perfect their fundraising skills, he is a frequent speaker at business schools including Harvard, Yale, Columbia and NYU. As a regular lecturer for New York’s Industrial Technology Assistance Corporation he has taught the Venture Financing and Deal Negotiation section of the FasTrak Tech courses since 1997.

An active investor in space-related enterprises including Space Adventures/Zero-G, David is Chairman and CEO of Angelsoft, which operates the international standard collaboration platform for early stage equity investing, and Chairman of Egret Capital Partners, a New York-based private equity firm. He is also Chairman of Ambient Devices, the premier bit-trickling wireless network and a member of the boards of KoolSpan, Inc., CE Interactive, Panjiva, Pond5, and Magnify Networks. He serves as an active early stage investor in companies including BioScale, eJamming, Goodmail, LinkStorm, Now Public, Mashery, Storm Risk Solutions, and over four dozen other early stage ventures.

A native New Yorker, David has a BA from Yale and an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School. He is a graduate of the New York City public school system and Horace Mann High School. He is profiled in Marquis Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the World and Who’s Who in Business and Industry.

Falcon Fund's principal, Edward F. Tuck, has managed venture capital funds since 1986. He founded or participated in founding several companies including Teledesic Corporation, Magellan Corporation, Applied Digital Access, and Endgate Corporation (now Endwave, NASDAQ ENWV).

He was a founder of the company which developed the first solid-state, frequency-modulated commercial microwave link system. The company was later acquired by ITT Corporation, where he first had worldwide technical responsibility for wireless transmission systems and later was Vice President and Technical Director of ITT North America Telecommunications Inc.

He is currently a Director Emeritus of TriQuint Semiconductor Corporation (NASD: TQNT) and a director of several closely-held companies. He was a founding Director of American Telecom Inc., a joint venture between American Telecommunications Corporation and Fujitsu Ltd., and has served on more than 30 boards of directors, including three public companies.

He has authored articles on corporate governance, communications policy, microwave engineering, Internet evolution and telephone signaling, and is listed as sole or co-inventor on several patents. He is a graduate of the University of Missouri at Rolla, where he was later awarded an honorary Professional degree and an honorary Doctor of Engineering degree. He serves in its Academy of Electrical Engineering. He is a Senior Member of the IEEE, a Fellow of the Institution of Engineeers Australia, a Professional Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an Independent Telephone Pioneer and a registered professional engineer.