Speaker Biography

Beth Moses

Chief Astronaut Instructor, Virgin Galactic

Beth Moses is an American astronaut, aerospace engineer and Chief Astronaut Instructor at Virgin Galactic, a private spaceflight company which is developing suborbital space tourism flights. Beth trains all cabin astronauts for flights in SpaceShipTwo. On February 22, 2019 Moses launched to space with pilots Dave Mackay and Mike Masucci on Virgin Galactic flight VF01 and performed the first-ever test of SpaceShipTwo’s cabin. She is the first astronaut to unstrap on a suborbital flight and is the world’s first female commercial astronaut. She was awarded FAA commercial astronaut wings #007.
Previously, Ms. Moses worked at NASA’s Johnson Space Center where she served as the Extravehicular Activity System Manager for the International Space Station from design through on-orbit construction. Ms. Moses received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering from Purdue University. She is the recipient of Chicago’s Adler Planetarium annual Women in Space Science Award and a Google Science Fair judge.