Dr. Chris Boshuizen

Dr Chris Boshuizen is an Australian astronaut, scientist, entrepreneur, investor, and musician. He flew to space as a commercial astronaut on Blue Origin’s New Shepard NS-18 mission on October 13 2021 alongside Star Trek’s William Shatner. Subsequently, he joined the board of Space for Humanity to continue his mission of sending humankind into space.

Boshuizen completed his PhD in physics at The University of Sydney in 2005 before accepting a contract position at the NASA Ames Research Center in California. There Dr Boshuizen established Singularity University and, most notably, co-created the NASA Phonesat nanosatellite.

After leaving NASA he co-founded Planet Labs, the first company to employ nanosatellites in a commercial capacity, radically reducing the cost of lifting payloads into space and paving the way for today’s large constellations of spacecraft. Today, Planet operates the largest fleet of Earth-observing satellites and maps the entire surface of the Earth daily, enabling previously unobtainable insights into our changing world.

Chris is also a songwriter and musician, releasing his own original music under the name “Dr Chrispy”. He is currently writing an EP about his journey to space, and also runs an independent record label, Interplanetary Records, which supports over a dozen independent musical artists. As an impact investor, he was an executive producer on “My Dead Friend Zoe”, a 2024 veteran-focused film starring Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris (2024 SXSW Audience Award Winner, 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

At present he runs Interplanetary Capital, an angel fund focusing on new space industry and deep tech start-up companies , leveraging his prior experience as an entrepreneur and former investment partner at DCVC. Boshuizen continues to invest in future space leaders through annual donations to Space for Humanity and The Space Generation Advisory Council.