Dennis Stone is a multi-faceted space executive with over 40 years of experience in space commercialization, international relations, program and business management, investment, and system engineering. He is Vice President-Business Development at Vast, developer of the world’s first commercial space station and the only one capable of artificial gravity.

An expert in public-private partnerships, he helped lead NASA’s investment of $1.6B in commercial space capabilities. He was Project Executive in NASA’s Commercial LEO Development Program at the Johnson Space Center where he supports development of Commercial LEO Destinations (CLD). He supported formulation of CLD and was Deputy Chair and Business Lead in the CLD competition which awarded over $400M to 3 companies. He helped define NASA’s CLD service needs and managed NASA’s CLD partnership with Blue Origin.

He was Business Chair during NASA’s investment of $800M in SpaceX and Orbital Sciences for Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS). He helped execute the successful COTS program and stimulated demand for microgravity by the bio/pharma industry.

Previously at NASA, he supporting the International Space Station (ISS) 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 space career designing avionics at McDonnell Douglas, developing upgrades for NASA’s Mission Control Center at Ford Aerospace, and supporting payload integration in NASA’s Space Shuttle Program for Rockwell International.

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 2021, WSW was celebrated with over 6,000 events in 96 nations getting 700,000,000 Twitter impressions. He drove the organic growth of this international organization and supervises a small staff.

He earned two Bachelor of Science degrees, in Physics and Electrical Engineering, from the University of Hawaii and is Associate Fellow of the AIAA.