Dennis Jenkins (Washington D.C.) is a consulting engineer in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During more than 20 years of service with various aerospace contractors, including Martin Marietta, Lockheed, Lockheed Martin, and United Space Alliance, Mr. Jenkins worked on the Space Shuttle, X-33, and several classified projects. He has also written over 30 works on aerospace history, including the critically acclaimed Space Shuttle: The History of the National Space Transportation System-The First 100 Flights and Hypersonic: The Story of the North American X-15 . He is currently working on the official history of the X-15 program for the NASA History office. Roger D.

Launius (Washington D.C.) 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. www.nasm.

si.edu/staffDetail.cfm'staffID=37 Valerie Neal (Washington D.C.) joined the Smithsonian as a curator in 1989 and is responsible for post-Apollo human spaceflight artifact collections, which principally document the history of Skylab and the space shuttle. Recently she led the effort to restore the Space Shuttle Enterprise for permanent display and to acquire SpaceShipOne for the national collection. She has curated two major Museum exhibitions: Space Race and Where Next, Columbus?, a gallery that examined the challenges of future exploration. Her publications include two edited books on space exploration, Spaceflight: A Smithsonian Guide (1995) and Where Next, Columbus? The Future of Space Exploration (1994).

Her recent articles on shuttle history have appeared in History and Technology and Space Policy . Her current projects are a book and exhibition on the space shuttle era. www.nasm.si.edu/staffDetail.cfm'staffID=40.