Mike Gold

Mike Gold is an American lawyer and space policy expert who has become a prominent voice in the 2026 disclosure movement after a distinguished career in government and commercial spaceflight. As NASA's Associate Administrator for Space Policy and Partnerships during the Obama and Trump administrations, Gold led the development of the Artemis Accords, the landmark international agreement establishing norms for peaceful space exploration and protecting lunar heritage. In 2020, he received the NASA Outstanding Leadership Medal for this work.

Gold's government tenure also included roles as Acting Associate Administrator for the Office of International and Interagency Relations and Senior Advisor to the NASA Administrator for International and Legal Affairs, where he negotiated binding agreements for the lunar Gateway, directed implementation of NASA's first lunar resource purchase, and updated planetary protection regulations. Before his NASA career, he spent thirteen years at Bigelow Aerospace, establishing the company's Washington office and playing a key role in the development and deployment of the Bigelow Expandable Activity Module (BEAM) on the International Space Station.

Since joining Redwire Space in 2021 as Chief Growth Officer, Gold has maintained a focus on space policy and international relations while increasingly advocating for transparency around unidentified anomalous phenomena. In 2022, he joined NASA's Unidentified Aerial Phenomena Independent Study Team, providing him direct exposure to UAP research challenges within the agency. By 2026, Gold became a central figure in the disclosure movement as a member of the executive committee leading the Disclosure Foundation's NASA archives review initiative, which applies AI and machine learning to identify promising UAP evidence in institutional records.

Gold's 2026 public statements have focused on two interconnected themes: NASA's historical role in prolonging stigma around UAP research, and the urgent need to overcome this institutional barrier to scientific progress. He emphasized that careers within academia and government agencies face threat from mere association with UAP research, creating a chilling effect on legitimate inquiry. Speaking at the Disclosure Forum 2026 in the Kennedy Caucus Room in June, Gold highlighted the potential of using Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) data to gather commercial pilot UAP reports while maintaining anonymity protections. His testimony to Congress in November 2024 addressed government secrecy surrounding UAP, positioning him as a bridge between established space policy and emerging disclosure advocacy.