Jon Agar is a lecturer in the history of technology at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine at Manchester University, Manchester, United Kingdom. He has created a computerized catalog of the Jodrell Bank Archives, and his essay on the construction of the Jodrell Bank big dish won the Singer Prize of the British Society for the History of Science.
José Altshuler is a scholar with the Centro de Estudios de Historia de la Ciencia y la Tecnologia, Havana, Cuba. He is the author of various articles and books on the history of science and technology, as well as a range of engineering science subjects. He has been both a professor of electrical engineering and a vice rector of the University of Havana. He also served as vice president of the Cuban Academy of Sciences and as president of the Cuban Space Commission, as well as president of the Cuban Society for the History of Science and Technology since 1993.
Bert C. Blevis joined the Canadian Defence Research Board in 1956. There he studied the Earth's upper atmosphere using radar reflections from the Moon and the aurora; then he investigated radio propagation in the non-ionized atmosphere, exploring the effects of atmospheric gases and precipitation on satellite communications. In 1969, Dr. Blevis joined the newly formed Canadian Department of Communications, where he was responsible for research on the applications of satellites to communications, broadcasting, and search and rescue. He also participated actively in international talks relating to satellite communications and its applications, as well as in negotiations concerning the use of the frequency spectrum and the geostationary orbit. His team, along with NASA, received an Emmy award for their work on the use of twelve-gigahertz satellites in broadcasting and the delivery of services to remote areas. He left government in 1987 as Director General, Space Technology and Applications, and has since worked in industry and as a private consultant. Over the span of his career in ionospheric research and space communications, he has written a large number of scientific and technical papers on a variety of subjects.
Andrew J. Butrica is a research historian and author of numerous articles and papers on the history of electricity and electrical engineering in the United States and France and the history of science and technology in nineteenth-century France. He is the author of To See the Unseen: A History of Planetary Radar Astronomy, published in the NASA History Series in 1996; a corporate history, Out of Thin Air: A History of Air Products and Chemicals, Inc., 1940-1990, published by Praeger in 1990; and co-editor of The Papers of Thomas Edison: Vol. I: The Making of an Inventor, 1847-1873, published by Johns Hopkins University Press in 1989.
Roberto Diaz-Martin is an active board member of the Cuban Society for the History of Science and Technology. He received an electrical engineering degree (telecommunications) from the University of Havana and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering (computer-assisted design) from the Institute of Radioengineering and Electronics of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences. Dr. D"az-Mart"n served as a scientific deputy director with the Cuban Academy of Sciences and then as scientific secretary of the Cuban Space Commission before joining the Havana Center for Studies on the History of Science and Technology, where he has been a senior researcher since 1995. He has published several scientific papers in the fields of network theory and the computer-assisted design of electronic circuits and, more recently, in the history of science and technology, especially the history of international communications in Cuba.
Donald C. Elder teaches history at Eastern New Mexico University, Portales. He has published several articles on spaceflight and his book, Out From the Behind the Eight-Ball: A History of Project Echo, appeared in 1995 from Univelt, Inc., American Astronautical Society History Series. He is currently series editor for the AAAS American Astronautical Society History Series, beginning with volume 19. In addition, the University of Iowa Press published, in 1997, his book on the American Civil War as seen through the eyes of an Iowan, "A Damned Iowa Greyhound": William Henry Harrison Clayton and the American Civil War.
Franklin W. Floyd obtained degrees in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he completed a doctoral thesis on x-ray astronomy. After serving in the U.S. Army Signal Corps, in 1963 he joined MIT's Lincoln Laboratory, where he contributed to the development of a variety of spacecraft electronics system. He was responsible for the attitude and orbit control systems of the eighth and ninth Lincoln Experimental Satellites (LES-8 and -9), as well as for the Lincoln Experimental Satellite Operations Center. Subsequently, he concentrated for several years on the development of UHF and millimeter-wave adaptive antennas for space communications applications. Between 1982 and 1985, he was project manager for the FLTSAT EHF Packages launched successfully in 1986 and 1989. After serving for three years as associate head of the Communications Division, in 1988 he left Lincoln Laboratory to join Stanford Telecommunications, Inc., as the founding vice president of the Microwave Division, which designed and manufactured wireless digital communications equipment and frequency synthesizers. He is a longtime member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).
Jonathan F. Galloway teaches in the Department of Politics at Lake Forest College, Lake Forest, Illinois. He is the author of several publications, including The Politics and Technology of Satellite Communications (Lexington Books, 1972). He is also a member of the International Academy of Astronautics and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
Adam L. Gruen is MCI's corporate historian and a member of the Network MCI Library. A graduate of Duke University, where he studied under Dr. Alex Roland, he enjoyed a Guggenheim Fellowship at the National Air and Space Museum and was formerly project director for NASA's Space Station History Project. A historian of technology with special expertise in the history of aerospace, networking systems, and modern structural and civil engineering, he also is author of the webwork vCity 1.0. Today, he lives with his wife, Beth Silver, and cat in Falls Church, Virginia.
Daniel R. Glover is a NASA engineer working for the Lewis Research Center's Satellite Networks and Architectures Branch in Cleveland. Since joining Lewis in 1982, most of his time has been spent working on spacecraft or space experiment design projects. Currently, he is working on Internet protocols over satellite. He received a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from The Ohio State University in 1980, a master of science in electrical engineering from the University of Toledo in 1986, and a Ph.D. from the University of Toledo in 1992. He is a licensed professional engineer in the State of Ohio. He is a member of the IEEE and the Technical Committee on History of the AIAA. He is the author of Planet Quest, published by the Space Telescope Science Institute's Exploration in Education program.
Daniel R. Headrick teaches history at Roosevelt University in Chicago. He is the author of several articles and books, including Tools of Empire: Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 1981); The Tentacle of Progress: Technology in the Age of Imperialism, 1850-1940 (Oxford University Press, 1988); and The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945 (Oxford University Press, 1991).
Edward J. Martin has spent the bulk of his forty-two-year career in the field of mobile communications, pioneering the use of satellites for the last thirty-three of those years. During the mid-1960s to early 1970s, he led Comsat's efforts to establish an aeronautical satellite system, and during the 1970s, he led the team that developed and operated Marisat, the world's first commercial mobile satellite system. In 1979, he formed Comsat's Inmarsat division and managed the transition from the U.S. to the international Marisat system. As the U.S. representative to the Inmarsat Council, he served as its first chair of the Finance Committee and as chair of the Council. Also at Comsat, he served on the Intelsat Board of Governors in various capacities, including vice president of Maritime Services. Since retiring from Comsat in 1988, he has been a private consultant to such clients as Hughes, Loral, GE Astrospace, Motorola/Iridium Inc., Honeywell, California Microwave, and Bell Atlantic International. He is currently president of MSUA (Mobile Satellite Users Association), an organization of industry and government members devoted to improving the mobile communications industry. A fellow of the IEEE, member-at-large of the IEEE Aerospace Policy Committee, and senior member of the AIAA, he is also a member of the Society of Satellite Professionals International.
Joseph N. Pelton currently serves as vice president of academic programs and dean of the International Space University in Strasbourg, France. During the previous seven years, he was the director of the Interdisciplinary Telecommunications Program at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The founding president of the Society of Satellite Professionals, a full member of the International Academy of Astronautics, and a member of Who's Who International, he held a number of management and executive positions with Intelsat for 22 years, including director of strategic policy and executive assistant to the director general. He currently chairs the 1997 NASA/National Science Foundation Panel on International Satellite Communications Technology and Systems. In addition, he is the author of fourteen books on telecommunications, the future of technology, and satellite communications, including Global Talk: The Marriage of the Computer, World Communications, and Man (Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1981), for which he received the Eugene M. Emme Astronautical Literature Award from the American Astronautical Society. He also is editor of the Journal of Space Communications and originator of Project SHARE, for which he won the H. Rex Lee Award of the Public Service Satellite Consortium.
Arturo Russo is professor of the history of physics at the University of Palermo, Italy, and the author of several publications on the history of twentieth-century physics, including the history of quantum mechanics, cosmic-ray physics, high-energy physics, and space science. He is currently engaged in the history project of the European Space Agency (ESA). As part of that project, he published (with John Krige) the book Europe in Space, 1960-1973 (ESA Publications Division, ESA SP-1172, September 1994), as well as several monographs on the history of the European space science and satellite telecommunications programs. Among those monographs, published by the ESA Publications Division, are: The Definition of ESRO's First Scientific Satellite Programme, 1961-1966 (ESA HSR-2, October 1992); Choosing ESRO's First Scientific Satellites (ESA HSR-3, November 1992); The Definition of a Scientific Policy: ESRO's Satellite Programme in 1969-1973 (ESA HSR-6, March 1993); The Early Development of the Telecommunications Satellite Programme in ESRO, 1965-1971 (ESA HSR-9, May 1993); ESRO's Telecommunications Programme and the OTS Project, 1970-1974 (ESA HSR-13, February 1994); and The Scientific Programme Between ESRO and ESA: Choosing New Projects, 1973-1977 (ESA HSR-16, February 1995).
Lorenza Sebesta has worked with the European Space Agency (ESA) History Project for the last five years at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. Currently, she holds an ESA-Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Integration at Faculty of Political Sciences, Course of International and Diplomatic Sciences in Bologna, Campus of Forl". She has been writing extensively on security in the 1950s (L'Europa indifesa, Firenze: Ponte alle Graize, 1991) and on topics related to U.S.-European cooperation in space. She is currently working on two book projects: one with John Krige and Arturo Russo on the history of ESA and one with John M. Logsdon on U.S.-European relations in space.
Brian Shoesmith is a senior lecturer in media studies in the Department of Media Studies and director of the Centre for Asian Communication, Media and Cultural Studies at Edith Cowan University, Mt. Lawley, in the Province of Western Australia. He is the co-editor of The Moving Image: Film and Television in Western Australia, 1896-1985 (History and Film Association of Australia, 1985), as well as several journal articles, and he is currently writing a book for John Libbey & Co., London, on the social and political consequences of satellite television in Asia from 1971 to the present.
David N. Spires teaches history at the University of Colorado at Boulder. As a career Air Force officer, he served on the faculty of the Air Force Academy, Colorado Springs; in intelligence assignments in Vietnam, Europe, and Turkey; and as staff historian at the headquarters of the U.S. Air Forces in Europe. His publications include articles and presentations on the German army and military space issues, as well as books on the pre-Hitler Germany Army, U.S./Greek military relations, and strategic defense issues. His forthcoming book is Air Power for Patton's Army: The XIX Tactical Air Command in the Second World War. He has just completed another book titled Beyond Horizons: A Half Century of Air Force Space Leadership.
Raman Srinivasan is a graduate student in the history and philosophy of science program at the University of Pennsylvania. His dissertation topic is a study of the technology and politics of satellite communications in India.
Rick W. Sturdevant, a historian with the U.S. Air Force, works in the Office of History at Headquarters Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara and has been a public historian since 1983. He has published articles in several journals and magazines, as well as "The United States Air Force Organizes for Space: The Operational Quest, 1943-1993," in Organizing for the Use of Space: Historical Perspectives on a Persistent Issue (Univelt, Inc., American Astronautical Society History Series, 1995).
David K. van Keuren is a historian with the Naval Research Laboratory. He has a Ph.D. in the history of science from the University of Pennsylvania (1982), was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow with the Library of the American Philosophical Society (1984-85), a research consultant with the Center for the History of Chemistry (1985-86), and a summer scholar with the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences (1986). He is editor of The Estate of Social Knowledge, published by the Johns Hopkins University Press; has published several essays on the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century British and American science; and is currently conducting research on the history of Project Mohole, which reflects his interest in science-government relations during the twentieth century.
Craig B. Waff is a graduate of the Johns Hopkins University program in the history of science and managing editor of physical sciences for Collier's Encyclopedia. He has written variously on eighteenth-century mathematical and planetary astronomy, and he wrote contract histories of the Galileo project and the Deep Space Network for NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
William W. Ward, a senior member of the IEEE, obtained a bachelor of science in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University and master of science and Ph.D. degrees from the California Institute of Technology in electrical engineering. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the Pacific arena during World War II. He joined the staff of MIT's Lincoln Laboratory in 1952, where he worked on a assortment of radar and communications systems engineering problems. His radar work included airborne early-warning and ground-based surveillance radars, space tracking and range instrumentation for NASA's Project Mercury, and ballistic missile testing. Beginning in 1965, he worked on space communications systems--mainly the development of systems that served the diverse needs of both military and civil users by means of reliable satellite links. He helped design, build, test, and operate in orbit LES-5, -6, -8, and -9, as well as two EHF Packages launched on FLTSAT satellites. Since retiring from his position as Lincoln Laboratory manager of satellite operations in 1994, he continues to tinker with a few old satellites that refuse to die, and he lectures, writes, consults, and raises vegetables in the summertime.
David J. Whalen is the general manager of engineering (chief engineer) of Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co., Ltd. (AsiaSat), in Hong Kong. He recently completed a Ph.D. degree in public policy (science and technology) from George Washington University, where he wrote a dissertation on the origins of satellite communications technology. He has worked in the communications satellite field since 1974. Dr. Whalen's original degrees were in astronomy, and he later earned an MBA. His major interest is in the interplay of politics and economics in technological innovation.
Nigel Wright is a graduate student in the PREST (Policy Research in Engineering, Science and Technology) department of the University of Manchester, England. His dissertation addresses British and Commonwealth telecommunications in the postwar period to 1965, specifically focusing on the introduction of the transoceanic coaxial telephone cable and communications satellites into intercontinental communications networks--looking at these developments within the wider context of British foreign and economic policy in the postwar years.
Zhu Yilin is secretary-general of the Science and Technology Commission of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology. He has participated extensively in the Chinese satellite communications program.