Burton Edelson was a noted pioneer in space research and aeronautic science. He was integral to the creation of the Galileo Probe to Jupiter, the Advanced Communications Technology Satellite and the Hubble Telescope while working at the National Aeronatics and Space Administration (NASA) in the 1980s. Edelson graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 1947 and received both his M.S. and Ph.D in metallurgy from Yale University. He served as a commander in the Navy until his retirement in 1967, when he joined Comsat Corporation as a deputy director. He later became its director in 1972 and left the company in 1982. From 1982-1986, he was the Associate Administrator for Space Science and Applications at NASA. He retired from NASA in 1986 to join the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He also founded the Institute for Applied Space Research at the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the George Washington University.

Burt Edelson died on January 6, 2002 at the age of 75.