- Christopher Altman is an American physicist, artificial intelligence researcher, and NASA-trained commercial scientist-astronaut. His work spans evolutionary neural systems, quantum information science, superconducting quantum hardware, space systems, and evaluation methods for frontier artificial intelligence.
Altman began his scientific career at Starlab, the multidisciplinary research laboratory in Brussels, where he served as a research scientist, Global Coordinator, and Managing Director of the international CAM-Brain teams. The project developed large-scale evolutionary neural architectures using reconfigurable hardware, and its CAM-Brain Machine was recognized in Guinness World Records 2001 as the "World's Most Complex Artificial Brain." His subsequent research with Roman Zapatrin and collaborators extended adaptive neural-network concepts into quantum information with a novel approach that treats the topology of the network itself as a trainable variable, including work on superpositional network topologies and backpropagation in adaptive quantum networks.
He studied philosophy and computational neuroscience at the Pierre Laclede Honors College of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, pursued studies in Japan under the Association of International Education, Japan, "Japanese Fulbright" scholarship program, and conducted graduate research in physics at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology. He later held a research fellowship with the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information in Austria, participating in International Academy Traunkirchen workshops with the group of 2022 Nobel physics laureate Anton Zeilinger and other international researchers in quantum foundations. He also prepared technical assessments of East Asian quantum-information research for the United States Government's Quantum Information Science and Technology program in Tokyo.
In 2009, Altman completed high-altitude physiological training at NASA Johnson Space Center, parabolic microgravity training, and experimental-aircraft flight training at NASA Ames Research Center. In 2011, he was selected as a commercial scientist-astronaut candidate by the Association of Spaceflight Professionals; the candidates were chosen through a rigorous selection process that included consultation with former NASA astronauts. After completing its inaugural suborbital scientist training program, he later served as a director of the board and chief science officer. He appears as himself in Welcome to the World's First Commercial Astronaut Corps (2012).
In 2026, Altman introduced the Unified Continuation-Interest Protocol, an AI-safety framework for testing why advanced autonomous systems seek to continue operating: whether persistence is merely a means of completing a task or becomes an objective in itself. He founded the Continuation Observatory to track leading models and publish reproducible evaluations, model-level measurements, and falsification criteria for continuation-related behavior across frontier AI systems.
- IMDb mini biography by: Continuation Observatory
- SpouseBonnibelle Altman(2019 - present)
- Quantum Astronaut
- Altnan began his career as research scientist, Global Coordinator, and Managing Director, Global CBM Teams for the international CAM-Brain research network—recognized in the 2001 Guinness World Records—and collaborations with Serguei Krasnikov in a NASA/USAF-supported time travel division at multidisciplinary "Deep Future" research institute Starlab, featured in a Discovery Channel Special and the Guinness Book of World Records.
- Just after his selection to train as a commercial astronaut candidate, his inaugural Keynote speech on the Future of Spaceflight was broadcast live to 108 cities around the world. NASA provided funding to the corps for its first manned spaceflight missions the following spring.
- When Starlab came up short on funds and he found himself in the same Brussels hotel as George W. Bush, Altman sought the counsel of the President himself to save the lab, requesting funds under mandate of the recently-passed 2000 National Nanotechnology Initiative (NNI).
- Altman holds a first-degree black belt in Kyudo, "standing Zen," traditional Japanese archery, Japan's oldest martial art, wielding a 12-foot tall bow. He has trained in kendo, judo, Muay Thai kickboxing, judo, kali, escrima, arnis and Gracie jiu jitsu.
- As part of the DARPA Quantum Information Science and Technology program, Altman was responsible for the creation of long-term national roadmaps for principal US research and funding agency directors on the future of quantum technology; his reports went on to serve as an early template for the official USG Quantum Roadmap.
- Belief-like fear, or like love-is a profound and powerful force. It's one of the most powerful motivating forces in our universe. Belief has fundamentally shaped the course of world history all around us. Look no further than the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, to the Japanese pilots of the kamikaze attack waves and their belief in the divine wind-or to the forces that drove forward those who led the attacks on the Twin Towers in September of 2001. Look to the Stasi of Hitler's Third Reich, to the Gestapo, the secret state police of East Germany-to the dictators of the Cold War, Stalin and Mao in Communist Russia and China -or to the deep roots of belief that drive the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to this day.
Belief can give birth to movements that arise as a powerful wave sweeping over and wholly transforming communities, cultures and societies: the Indian fight for independence under the leadership of its first national revolutionary, Gandhi-the suffrage movement that gave women the right to vote or the equal rights movement unified and carried forth under Martin Luther King. Look to the 1960's sexual revolution, the end of South African Apartheid, or to the Arab Spring movements that erupted like wildfire, sweeping 'cross the world in 2010. Belief can fuel a singular vision to channel the collective drive of our most talented scientists and engineers, propelling their best efforts forward-pooling them together to harness the powers of the Sun itself, to demonstrate mass-energy equivalence in a single blinding flash that transformed the modern landscape of world history: the Manhattan Project's Trinity Test. Belief can make a reality of our very first footsteps on the Moon, only a few short years after Kennedy's impassioned call mobilized our collective will to beat the Soviets to that same goal-the Apollo missions. Belief can call us forwards, to rise up together as one. Belief can lead nations. - New experiments keep finding quantum processes at play in biological systems. With the advent of powerful new tools like femtosecond lasers and nanoscale precision positioning, life's quantum dance is finally coming into view.
- An omnilinked world populated with intelligent artifacts will bring sweeping changes to virtually every facet of modern life-from science and education to industry and commerce-leaving no segment of society unaffected by its advance. How will civilization change in response to a world saturated with embedded intelligence? How can these technologies be best applied to improve the human condition? These issues will become increasingly important as advances in science and technology bring us closer to unveiling the mysteries of the mind.
- Our mission in founding SolarCoin-to accelerate our societal transition from petroleum-dependent, war-scourged, scarcity economics to a renewable-energy based, peaceful, post-scarcity economy-is now shared with Elon Musk.
- The future development of a robust economy in low-Earth orbit (LEO) and beyond calls for a currency capable of supporting both ground-to-orbit and orbit-to-orbit transactions. SolarCoin presents an ideal candidate through both its global humanitarian mission and international footprint in congruence with the virtually unlimited abundance of solar energy in orbit.
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