Walter C. Anderson (born 1953) is an American entrepreneur, investor, and advocate for commercial space travel. He began his career in telecommunications and founded several companies including Mid-Atlantic Telecom in 1984 and Esprit Telecom in 1992, which were acquired by Frontier Communications and Global TeleSystems Group, respectively. He co-founded the International Space University and provided financial support for the Space Frontier Foundation during its creation. Anderson also invested in a number of space ventures including Rotary Rocket, a company that attempted to develop a reusable, single-stage launch vehicle with the aid of helicopter rotors. He founded MirCorp, an unsuccessful venture to privatize the Mir space station, and Orbital Recovery Corporation, a company developing technology to capture and repair telecommunication satellites.
In the mid-2000s, Anderson pled guilty to charges of tax evasion and was sentenced to nine years in prison. After his release in 2012, he founded Avealto a company developing a fleet of high-altitude platforms.
Early life
Walter C. Anderson was born Walter Anderson Crump in 1953. He grew up in Washington, D.C. He founded Mid-Atlantic Telecom in 1984. when the company was acquired by Rochester Telephone Corporation (now Frontier Communications).
In 1988, Anderson co-founded the International Space University as an early investor. He provided financial support for the Space Frontier Foundation during its creation in 1991. Anderson served as chairman of the company until November 1998. The same year, Anderson became chairman of Worldxchange Communications. He served in the position until December 2000 when the company was sold to World Access. He also served as chairman of Covista Communications from 1999 to 2001. His highest-profile space investment was MirCorp, the late 1990s start-up that briefly privatized Russia's aging Mir space station. He reportedly invested as much as $30 million into the venture. a now-defunct venture to develop a reusable single-stage-to-orbit crewed spacecraft that hoped to combine the rotors of a helicopter with rocketry to achieve orbit. In the early 2000s, Anderson also founded and served as CEO of Orbital Recovery Corporation,
In the mid-2000s, he was accused of not reporting income from investments in non-US companies. He was held in the Washington, D.C. jail for more than 2 years, He was sentenced to nine years in prison in March 2007. Anderson was released at the end of 2012 after serving the last few months of his term at home in Virginia.
In September 2007, Anderson was named by the New Scientist as one of the "Top 10 Influential Space Thinkers".
In 2013, Anderson founded Avealto Ltd., based in the UK. Avealto was founded to finance, construct and operate a fleet of high-altitude platforms.