Hey there, I'm Justin. I live in Madison, WI, where I build cool things for the web.

I've been fascinated by computers since my first typing class when I was 6 years old. The idea that I could come up with instructions and watch a machine execute them exactly as I wrote them was mind-blowing. I spent my formative years noodling in some old 2d animation software (its name is, sadly, lost to time) and manipulating websites using HTML and CSS.

The only thing I loved more than computers as a kid was space. When I was 8, I climbed the 40-foot oak tree at the back of our yard while wearing my older sister's motorcycle helmet, counted down from three, and jumped — hoping the tree was tall enough that with just a bit of momentum I'd be able to get to orbit.

I spent the next few summers indoors working on a rocket design, while I recovered from the multiple surgeries it took to fix my badly broken legs. It took nine iterations, but when I was 15 I sent my dad's Blackberry into orbit and was able to transmit a photo back down to our family computer from space.

Today, I'm the founder of Planetaria, where we're working on civilian space suits and manned shuttle kits you can assemble at home so that the next generation of kids really can make it to orbit — from the comfort of their own backyards.