About the Authors

Leonard David is a space journalist who has reported on space activities for more than 45 years. Winner of the National Space Club Press Award in 2010, Leonard has served as editor-in-chief of the National Space Society’s Ad Astra, Space World, and Final Frontier magazines as well as being a featured contributor to publications such as Space News, SPACE.com, Aerospace America, Sky and Telescope, and Aviation Week & Space Technology.

He has consulted with NASA, other government agencies and the aerospace community and served as director of research for the National Commission on Space, a U.S. Congress/White House study that appraised the next 50–100 years of space exploration. In 2013, he coauthored, with Gemini and Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the National Geographic book Mission to Mars—My Vision for Space Exploration.

Additionally, along with his wife, Barbara David, he has worked on a number of educational outreach programs developing materials that focus on space-related science projects. For more on Leonard, please visit: www.leonarddavid.com.

Scott Sacknoff began his career as a project engineer, developing and testing next generation Space Shuttle engine components before becoming a consultant where he focused on the commercial and business side of the industry. For more than twenty years he performed varied commercial space consulting studies and analyses for NASA, DoD, and private sector contractors as well as working in venture capital, as an entrepreneur, and in the investment sector. Today, he serves as the publisher of the history journal, Quest: The History of Spaceflight (www.spacehistory101.com) and manages the SPADE Defense Index (NYSE: DXS), an investment benchmark focused on defense, space, and national security www.spadeindex.com. He is an alumnus of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and of the International Space University.