Arthur M. Dula
National Space Society Board of Governors
Art Dula is a space lawyer, a patent attorney, and the Chief Executive Officer of Excalibur Almaz Limited, a private spaceflight company.
Art Dula’s law practice focuses on aerospace and intellectual property law, technology licensing, business start-up and development, patents, contracts, corporations, securities, copyrights and trademarks. His clients include U.S. and Russian aerospace firms. He is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and Texas State and Federal Courts. He is also a registered broker with US State Department, Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Office of Defense Trade Controls.
Since 1980, Art Dula has co-founded several other aerospace companies: (1) Eagle Aerospace, which provided engineering expertise for NASA and U.S. aerospace companies. (2) Space Services, Inc., which secured the first US regulatory approval of a private space launch. In 1982, it launched the first private U.S. space vehicle, the Conestoga, from Matagorda Island, Texas. (3) Spacehab, Inc., which builds payload bay Spacehab modules for the U.S. space shuttle. (4) Space Commerce Corporation, which was the first U.S.-Russian aerospace joint venture. It sold a Soviet Proton rocket launch to Hughes Aerospace in 1987, and marketed remote sensing radar images. (5) Tethers Unlimited, Inc., which won seven patents on space tether systems, and secured over $2 million in research contracts. (6) Starcraft Boosters, Inc., which has contracts with US Air Force and NASA for the StarBooster launching system.
Art Dula is literary executor for the major science fiction writer, Robert A. Heinlein. He also serves as Trustee of the Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Prize Trust. In 2006, the Trust awarded the first Heinlein Prize, in the amount of $500,000, to Peter Diamandis, for outstanding personal initiative and significant progress in commercial space activities.
He has taught space law for the University of Houston, and was a Visiting Distinguished Professor of Law, University of Akron. He consulted NASA on the space shuttle payload contract, and served as legal advisor to the U.S. Congress, Office of Technology Assessment. He has been awarded the Space Pioneer Award from the National Space Society, and the Gagarin Medal from the Russian Federation of Cosmonautics.
