James oberg biography

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James Oberg, 70, is one of the world's leading popularizers and interpreters of space exploration. As the NBC News 'Space Consultant' he often appears in broadcast and website assessments of space events, explaining them and placing them in broader context, and usual breaking 'inside stories' far ahead of other news media sites. As guide for public-access expeditions to space-related locations for the American Museum of Natural History, he interprets space achievements as manifestations of human ingenuity and creativity, painted on metal and concrete and plastic rather than the more traditional canvas and marble and textiles.

As contributor to numerous space technology publications he assesses in depth the important accomplishments and trends of developments in space activities around the world, not only in the US but in Russia and China and elsewhere. When he was an active 'rocket scientist', Oberg had a year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous, as a contractor employee.

In support of NASA's spaceflight operations he has written books on Rendezvous Flight Procedures, on Mission Control Center console operations, and on the history of orbital rendezvous. In honor of his pioneering work on developing and documenting these space shuttle rendezvous techniques, he was named by the NASA-Area "Association of Technical Societies" as their "Technical Person of the Year".

James Oberg was.

In he received the "Sustained Superior Performance" award for coordinating the design of the complex first Space Station assembly mission. He has written ten books and more than a thousand magazine and newspaper articles on all aspects of space flight. His book, Space Power Theory, commissioned by the US Space Command, described how the United States has achieved space superiority and how it can exploit and maintain it into the next century.

He also contributes key articles on space topics to several leading encyclopedias and annual reference books. Beyond mere chronology, Oberg has been active in portraying space exploration in its social context, including studies of the widespread web of mythology, legends, and misconceptions that have sprung up around actual events. He has also theorized about future developments of space technology in the expansion of human activity to other worlds, and the use of space-derived knowledge, power, and wisdom to mend and tend the biosphere of Earth.

In addition, he has used spaceflight-proven methods of technological safety and reliability to examine where, how and why space managers and workers have fallen short of such standards, leading to disasters, and he has contributed to private aviation accident investigations involving seemingly-unexplainable disasters such as the Korean Airlines flight shootdown by the USSR in Oberg is widely regarded as a world authority on the Russian and Chinese space programs.

He has several times been invited to testify before Congress about the problems facing the Russian space industry and the prospects for China in space, and regularly lectures at government 'think tanks' on these themes. He is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society and in was invited to become the first foreign member of the Russian Academy of Cosmonautics.