Mitchell Burnside Clapp

Mitchell Burnside Clapp is the founder of Pioneer Rocketplane, which begat Rocketplane Limited. He graduated from MIT in 1984 with two degrees in Aerospace Engineering, one in Physics, and another in Russian, establishing the trend of being constitutionally unable to limit himself to just one field of endeavor. During 1988 he attended the USAF Test Pilot School (pretty much forcing him to gafiate for a while), from where he graduated in that year to work on the YA-7F program, serve as an instructor on the school's staff, and later as the Air Force's flight test person on the DC-X program. It was this experience that led to his initial involvement with the alt.space community, and indirectly to his development of aerial propellant transfer technology to enable horizontal takeoff, horizontal landing spaceplanes.

He left active duty military service in 1996 to found Pioneer Rocketplane, which won a series of contracts from NASA, the DoD, and the state of California as well as significant private investment and contracted efforts. He is also the CEO of another technology startup called Short Order Video. He has a wife, several patents, three children, two houses, a dog, a cat, many songwriting credits, a growing expertise in wine, and little skill at writing biographical information about himself. Although he does not consider himself a mad scientist (though he is occasionally peevish), he does have two beautiful daughters, and a son as well