Roger D. Launius is chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, Washington, D.C. A graduate of Graceland College, he received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University in 1982. He is the author of numerous articles on the history of aeronautics and space, which appeared in Prologue: The Journal of the National Archives, Journal of Third World Studies, Journal of the West, Airpower Journal, Aerospace Historian, Air Power History, Airlift: The Journal of the Airlift Operations School, the American Aviation Historical Society Journal, Airman, the Air Force Journal of Logistics, and the Utah Historical Quarterly. He is author of Joseph Smith 111: Pragmatic Prophet (University of Illinois Press, 1988); co-editor of Different Visions: Dissenters in Mormon History (University of Illinois Press, 1988); co-author of MAC and the Legacy of the Berlin Airlift (USAF, 1989) and Anything, Anywhere, Anytime: An Illustrated History of the Military Airlift Command, 1941-1991 (USAF, 1991), as well as the author or editor of six other books. He is presently conducting research for a book-length study of aviation in the American West,1903- 1945, and completing a one-volume overview of the U.S. civilian space program for the Robert E. Krieger Publishing Co.
J.D. Hunley is a historian in the NASA History Office. He earned B.A. (1963)and Ph.D.(1973)degrees from the University of Virginia and an M.A. from Harvard (1968), all in European history. At Virginia, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received the C.S. Ashby Henry Prize in history. He attended Harvard on a Woodrow Wilson fellowship. After teaching for five years (1972-1977) at Allegheny College, he worked for more than a decade as a civilian historian in the Air Force History Program, where among other awards he won the program's monograph award in 1990. He began working in the NASA History Office in 1991. He has written Boom and Bust: Society and Electoral Politics in the Dusseldorf Area, 1867-1878 (Garland, 1987) and The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels: A Reinterpretation (Yale University Press, 1991). His articles have appeared in Social Theory and Practice, Societas&emdash;A Review of Social History, Essays in History, and Comparative Bibliographic Essays in Military History.