"I would rather motivate the folks I vote for! They have far better credentials than I!"
The only credential you need to work for AMSAT is a willingness to work your ass off. The board members and other volunteers already have much more motivation than the people who shout their suggestions from the sidelines but don't want to roll up their sleeves and get to work.
"Commercial entities gaining recognition by providing in-kind services. Elon Musk SpaceX, etc."
I get a weird sort of chuckle from the people who think the only reason we haven't gotten a free launch from Space-X is because we haven't offered Elon a free AMSAT tee shirt. It sort of reminds me of a six year old child who makes an obvious suggestion and smiles as if he was the first person in the history of the world to think of it. Elon already has about as much recognition as he will ever need, and he is busy launching astronauts to the ISS and putting 30,000 satellites in orbit so everybody can access Facebook. (by my calculation, with 58 satellites per launch it will only take 517 Falcon launches to populate a 30,000 piece constellation). We need to come up with a compelling answer to the rest of the world when they ask "why do you need to use your ham radio when you could just use a cellphone or the internet to communicate?"
Dan Schultz N8FGV I really should refrain from making postings at 2:00am but sometimes I just can't help it.