astronomy

Will Pomerantz

Will Pomerantz is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Will Pomerantz rather than just read about it. In short: William Pomerantz is Vice President of Special Projects at Virgin Orbit. He was part of the team that created Virgin Orbit while working at Virgin Galactic.

Key takeaways

Will Pomerantz belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Will Pomerantz to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Will Pomerantz from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

William Pomerantz is Vice President of Special Projects at Virgin Orbit. He was part of the team that created Virgin Orbit while working at Virgin Galactic. He is the co-founder of the Brooke Owens Fellowship and a trustee of the United States Students for the Exploration and Development of Space organisation.

Early life and education Pomerantz was born in 1980 in Buffalo, New York. His parents are Sandra Pomerantz, a social worker and lawyer, and James Pomerantz, a cognitive psychologist. His step-mother is Mary McIntire, Dean of Continuing Studies at Rice University. Pomerantz studied Earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. During his undergraduate degree he studied at the NASA Academy. He completed a master's degree at the International Space University, working in the Information, Communication and Space Technology group at the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. Pomerantz co-founded the website SpaceAlumni with Nicholas Skytland in 2004, a social media platform for young space professionals, acting as chief editor until 2007. He worked at Brown University as a planetary scientist, identifying surface features on Mars.

Career After graduate school Pomerantz joined Futron, an aerospace consultancy that eventually became acquired by Avascent. In 2005 Pomerantz joined X Prize Foundation, acting as Director of Space Prizes. He was promoted to Senior Director of Space Projects and helped to create both the Google Lunar X Prize and Northrop Grumman Lunar Lander Challenge. In 2010, Pomerantz contributed a chapter to the textbook Space Commerce. He joined Virgin Galactic in 2011 and was appointed vice president. He was determined to use the SpaceShipTwo to support educational and research payloads as well as space tourism. He spoke at the 2013 TEDxPCC at the Expanding Horizons of Understanding event, where he discussed why humans explore space. Pomerantz led the effort to launch the LauncherOne, which allows people to launch small satellites from an air-launched system. He was the first employee of Virgin Orbit, which will 3D print rockets and engines for satellite launches. In 2024, he was selected as a Karman Fellow by The Karman Project for his work in space exploration. His wife is the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineer Diana Trujillo.

Public service and advocacy He has advised the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and Federal Aviation Administration. He was a judge at the inaugural Mayor of Los Angeles Cup, an entrepreneurship challenge to improve Los Abgeles for citizens. He has written for HuffPost. Pomerantz is the chair of the Board of Advisors for the American organisation Students for the Exploration and Development of Space and on the advisory board for the Waypaver Foundation. He is on the editorial board of Room, the space journal. In 2016, Pomerantz established the Brooke Owens Fellowship, a mentoring scheme which champions women in aerospace. The fellowships offer undergraduate women positions in the space sector and assigns them a personal mentor working in industry. He co-founded the fellowship with Lori Garver and Cassie Kloberdanz Lee.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Will Pomerantz

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Will Pomerantz claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Will Pomerantz before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Will Pomerantz ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Will Pomerantz

In research: Will Pomerantz appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Will Pomerantz in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Will Pomerantz is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics American aerospace engineers, American businesspeople in aerospace, Harvard University alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Will Pomerantz outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Will Pomerantz in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Will Pomerantz means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Will Pomerantz out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Will Pomerantz in simple terms?

William Pomerantz is Vice President of Special Projects at Virgin Orbit. He was part of the team that created Virgin Orbit while working at Virgin Galactic.

Why does Will Pomerantz matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Will Pomerantz?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Will Pomerantz.