Dale Amon
Dale Amon is the President and CEO of Immortal Data Corporation, a Member of the Board of Directors of the National Space Society, and Chairman of the NSS Archives Committee with over 40 years of experience in aerospace technology, real-time data systems, and space advocacy.
He is a NewSpace pioneer who has developed distributed black-box technology for spacecraft and holds U.S. Patent 9286738 for reconfigurable data recording and recovery systems.
As President and CEO of Immortal Data since founding the company in 2010, Dale leads the development of cell phone-sized distributed black box modules designed to survive catastrophic spacecraft events. The company operates from the Las Cruces Innovation & Industrial Park in New Mexico and has secured support from the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation.
His patented ShipsStore technology was baselined for flight-test black boxes on the XCOR Aerospace Lynx Spaceplane, and the company conducted four years of tests on XCOR’s 5K18 engine. Read The Entrepreneur and Interview: Immortal Data’s CEO Dale Amon speaks to The Entrepreneur magazine.
Dale has served on the National Space Society Board of Directors as both a regional and at-large member across multiple terms, demonstrating exceptional leadership in space advocacy. He founded the Pittsburgh L5 Society chapter in 1982, chaired the NSS Conference Coordinating Committee from 2002 to 2016, overseeing some of the most successful conferences in the Society’s history, and served as founding Chair of the NSS Space Settlement Summit. He chaired the 1987 International Space Development Conference and has assisted in approximately two-thirds of the 31 ISDCs held to date, managing events with 600–1200 attendees. Read Dale Amon Biography.
Previously, Dale worked as a Senior Engineer and on-site contractor at XCOR Aerospace from July 2015 to 2016, where he was responsible for data acquisition, storage, and display systems for the Lynx suborbital spaceplane. He developed real-time data systems and contributed to the spacecraft’s electronic architecture before the project was suspended.
His entrepreneurial ventures include cofounding Ireland’s first Internet Service Provider in the early 1990s, making him a pioneer in bringing internet connectivity to Ireland. His technology career spans work at Queen’s University Belfast, where he conducted research in computer science, and at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, where he performed hand-eye robotics research and developed haptic control systems for NASA in the Computer Music Lab. Dale has worked with Unix systems since 1983 and brings deep expertise in both hardware and software development. Read The Impact of Molecular Engineering on Spacecraft Information Systems.
Dale’s consulting work has included contracts with the federal government, EXOS Aerospace in Caddo Mills, and Excalibur Almaz in Houston. Immortal Data has approximately 15 employees across the United States, primarily aerospace industry veterans working as independent contractors. The company has collaborated with the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology on an FAA/AST grant and has worked with students on sub-orbital rocket launch projects.
His space advocacy achievements include testifying before the Presidential National Commission on Space, publishing in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, and founding the Mikkelson Award for the first woman on Luna. He has presented at the International Space Development Conference on topics including “The Lynx, The Distributed Black Box and Data Flows: Data Systems in the 21st Century” and has been quoted in major publications, including the Los Angeles Times.
Dale earned his Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1973, with a computer systems option. He completed several semesters of graduate work under Nobel laureate Dr. Herbert Simon in a multidisciplinary program involving Cognitive Psychology, Artificial Intelligence, and Computer Science before leaving to join a startup company. His graduate studies included courses in brain anatomy and chemistry, and biological feedback systems, with advisors including Dr. Herbert Simon and Dr. Angel Jordan.
Dale has received numerous honors, including the NSS Exceptional Service Award in 2007 and being named NSS Space Activist of the Year in 2011. He is cited in Google Scholar with over 60 citations for his work in spacecraft data systems, haptics, nanotechnology, and commercial space flight. First Stage Investing, a KingsCrowd company, named Immortal Data its top selection in 2022.
Beyond his technical work, Dale is a certified pilot and professional musician with international performance credits, having organized and performed at venues including Belfast’s songwriter sessions from 1992 to 1998.
He currently operates from both Northern Ireland and New Mexico, maintaining Immortal Data’s presence at the Las Cruces Innovation & Industrial Park while continuing to advance commercial space development.
His vision, as stated in interviews, is to “make enough money, live long enough and leave Earth” to help establish humanity as a spacefaring civilization.
Visit his LinkedIn profile, NSS page, Google Scholar page, and Immortal Data homepage. Follow him on Facebook and X.