President: Dr Robert Charles Parkinson MBE
Born 15th July 1941. Joined the Society in 1956 and elected to Fellow in 1977. He served on the Council from 1968 -1971, 1975-1978 and 1982 to 1985. He is currently a Vice-President. He gained his doctorate in 1965 from the University of Nottingham. He has worked for the Rocket Propulsion Establishment, Perme, British Aerospace, Matra Marconi and Astrium. He has had papers published in Spaceflight and JBIS. He also worked on Project Daedalus.

He is a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and was awarded the MBE in the 2002 New Years Honours List.

He would like to encourage the BIS to continue being an advocate for enthusiastic development of future developments in astronautics. 

Vice President: Alistair Scott
Born in Hong Kong and educated in Bangkok, Malaya, England and Scotland, he joined Hawker Siddeley Aviation at Hatfield in 1967. Gaining an Aeronautical Engineering degree from Bristol University, he worked in Design and Sales Engineering on the Trident, Airbus, HS125, and HS146 aircraft. In 1978 he joined British Aerospace Dynamics in Stevenage as a Marketing Manager for missile systems in the Middle East and in 1984 moved over to British Aerospace Space Systems as Marketing Manager, Communications Satellites, in the Middle East, Far East and Australia. He became PR Manager for Matra Marconi Space (UK) in 1995 and was appointed Director of Communications for the Telecommunications and Navigation Division Astrium on its formation in May 2000. After a period as Communications Director (UK), EADS Space, he is now Communications & PR Adviser (UK) EADS Astrium, based in Stevenage, UK.

He is a member of the BIS Programme Committee and a Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society. His other interests include the Territorial Army, military vehicles, vintage cars, sailing and cartooning.

Living up to its motto, 'From Imagination to Reality', the British Interplanetary Sociey has always been 'ahead of the game' in proposing and predicting man's use and exploration of space. In order to retain this position and maintain the respect of its peers across the world as many other nations join the 'space race', I consider it important that the Society is kept fully informed of current and proposed activities both in industry and academia. I believe I can help to maintain this firm  base from which the Society can continue to promote the further use and exploration of space.

Council Members:

Chris Toomer
Born on 24th November 1961, joined the society in 1983 and elected to Fellow in 1991. She studied mathematics and physics to PhD at Imperial College, researching on stellar and terrestrial atmospheres. She then moved to Industry to work on space vehicle propulsion and hypersonics. She has been employed at BAE Systems, NASA and universities in the UK and abroad and is currently Principal Lecturer at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

We are currently in a period of substantial space activity whose successes will open a new era of space travel available to more people than ever before. The BIS, as the UK’s principal society for space travel, must ensure that it is at the forefront of this movement, increasing public understanding of space travel, encouraging young people to be involved, and supporting space professionals in their career development. To do this effectively the Society needs to strengthen itself by regaining financial security, becoming more visible to the Public and more influential amongst the professional scientific and engineering societies. Its membership needs to expand, particularly with the younger generations who bring vitality, enthusiasm and long term support. This will complement the experience and dedication of the older generations of the Society. Such developments need considerable effort and I would like the opportunity to work within the Council to promote such initiatives.

Richard Osborne
Born on 10 October 1967. Joined the Society in 1983, and elected to Fellow in 1992.

He has a Bachelors degree in Physics, a Masters Degree in Remote Sensing (specialising in Martian surface analysis), is a Chartered Physicist, a Chartered Scientist, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and has served on the UK Rocketry Association’s Council for 10 years.

Currently working as a consultant systems architect, as well as with Reaction Engines Limited on the STERN hydrogen fuelled air breathing rocket engine. Richard has also worked on a number of space industry projects ranging from payloads to the Mir space station to Mars missions, specialising more recently in systems engineering in addition to rocket propulsion. Involved  in a number of professional and amateur rocketry ventures in the past, as well as potential UK X-Prize contenders which didn’t see the light of day. Also extensively involved with hybrid rocket propulsion systems for the last 15 years.

He is enthusiastic to expand the reach of the Society, and to see a stronger participation from the younger members, to encourage support for potential members in the undergraduate and recent graduate communities and to use technology as an enabler for the Society. He is a very keen advocate of manned spaceflight and launch vehicle technology.

Gerry Webb
Born in 1941. Joined the Society in 1958 and elected to Fellow in 1969.

Gerry has been the General Director of Commercial Space Technologies Ltd (CST) since its foundation in 1983. Before this he worked for the British Government space research programme, beginning from 1960, at the Radio Research Laboratory (Slough). This laboratory became the Appleton Laboratory and ultimately merged with the Rutherford Laboratory to become (RAL).

Gerry graduated in Physic and completed postgraduate work in Space Science (University College London). All of his working life has been in the space field, beginning with the radio tracking of Sputnik 3 and other early Soviet satellites in order to measure ionospheric parameters. After a ten year period of work between 1968 and 1978 with sounding rockets investigating the Earth's geomagnetic field from the arctic launch ranges of Andoya and Kiruna he transferred to the management team procuring sounding rockets for the British space research community.

Anthony Errington
Born 28th October 1938. Joined the Society in 1984 and elected to Fellow. Student Apprenticeship with English Electric Stevenage and Bachelor in Technology from Loughborough College in 1961. He received a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from the University of Houston in 1970. He worked on Apollo and Shuttle Guidance and Control and early Space Station studies while employed by Lockheed Electronics Co at the Manned Spacecraft Centre. During 25 years with the European Space Agency at ESTEC he was responsible for Data Management and Communications Systems development on the Spacelab, Hipparcos, Columbus and DMS-R programmes. He would like to support the Society in fostering interest in manned and unmanned exploration of the Solar System and to promote the Societies aims and endeavours.

Mark Hempsell
Born 10th September 1954. Joined the Society in 1971 and elected to Fellow in 1984. He is currently a member of Council and is the immediate Past President. He serves on the Finance and General Purposes Committee and the Technical Committee. His career in astronautics started at British Aerospace Space and Communications Division working as a systems engineer on communications satellites and infrastructure systems. In 1991 he took up his current appointment as Lecturer in Space Technology at the University of Bristol. He is particularly keen to keep the balance between the academic and the popularising roles of the Society to ensure they continue to invigorate each other. 

Doug Millard
Born 27th October 1958. Joined the Society in 1989 and elected to Fellow in 1995.He is Curator of the Space Gallery at the Science Museum. He serves on the BIS History and Programme Committees.
 
He would like to bring and adapt his experience of working in the Space technical field,  in a national museum, to the Society in order to build on and develop further its successes of its first 68 years.

Keith Wright
Born 29th April 1940. Joined the Society in 1955 and elected to Fellow in 1971. He serves on the BIS Publications Committee. He worked for ESA fromm 1975 to 1994, received the NASA Apollo Achievement Award and the NASA Public Service Group Achievement Award. His particular interest is supporting the commercialisation of spaceflight; furthering human exploration and settlement of the solar system; educating young people as to the benefits of spaceflight and increasing the reliability and safety of spaceflight.

Executive Secretary
Suszann Parry
Joined the Society in 1986 to assist in the preparation of the 1987 International Astronautical Congress. She continued as the Production Editor of JBIS and then promoted to Deputy Executive Secretary in 1993 and Executive Secretary in 2002.