Roger D. Launius graduated from Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa and received his Ph.D. from Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, in 1982. He then worked as a civilian historian with the United States Air Force until 1990, when he became chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration from 1990 to 2002. He is currently the senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.