Early career In 1994, while Anderson was at the University of Virginia, he interned for the founder and chairman of the
X Prize Foundation,
Peter Diamandis, in
Washington, D.C. While there he helped organize the
Ansari X Prize, a competition for the first private-sector crewed space flight,
Space Adventures Foundation While Anderson was at the NASA Academy program in 1995, he began thinking seriously about space tourism, and in particular decided that NASA would not be able to develop a program that could take civilians into space at a "reasonable cost".
Development of the business Anderson initially arranged for clients to experience flights to "the edge of space" in
MiG-25 fighter jets, the first time a private citizen had paid to fly to orbit.
Commercial market for space travel In his work with Space Adventures, Anderson has been widely credited as the first to monetize spaceflight and demonstrate the viability of a commercial market for space travel, by proving there is demand for space tourism. Anderson has stated that he sees tourism as a catalyst for the
commercialization of space through encouraging development of cheaper transportation into space, which will eventually allow humanity to develop and colonize space, including the development of natural resources beyond earth. In an interview with
Smart CEO, he said that he believes that it is "imperative" to explore space for humanity's long-term survival. Anderson is also the president and CEO of
Intentional Software Corporation, a software development company founded by
Charles Simonyi that develops solutions to make creating
applications more intuitive and accessible to people who are not experienced in
computer programming. Later that year, on December 15, 2010, he was chosen as the next chairman of the board of the
Commercial Spaceflight Federation, an organization that promotes the development of the commercial spaceflight industry. Anderson is also the co-founder and former co-chairman of
Planetary Resources, Inc., a 2010s company that developed technology with the aim of carrying out
exploration of asteroids and mining them for resources including platinum and other precious metals.
Speaking appearances and writing Anderson has appeared as a guest speaker and lecturer at conferences including the
World Economic Forum in
Davos, Switzerland, the Forbes Global CEO Conference, He has also contributed to two books,
Kids Who Think Outside the Box by Stephanie Lerner and
The Space Tourist’s Handbook, a guide to space tourism that he co-authored. ==Philanthropy and organizations==