Curator
National Air and Space Museum
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
MRC 311
Washington, D.C. 20013-7012
launiusr@nasm.si.edu
Research Interests
Lunar and Planetary exploration, history of U.S. space flight, American religious movements.
Current Research Projects
"Reconsidering a Century of Flight" (University of North Carolina Press, Fall 2003), edited with Janet R. Daly Bednarek: This volume is a selection of invited papers presented at a conference on a century of flight held at North Carolina State University in October 2001. It explores four major themes in the history of aviation, publishing three chapters on each:
1. Innovation and the Technology of Flight
2. Civil Aeronautics and Government Policy
3. Aerial Warfare
4. Aviation in the American Imagination
"Apollo in American Memory and Myth": Research underway for a book to be published on the popular culture of the Apollo project to land Americans on the Moon in the 1960s.
"Voices from the Cape: An Oral History of NASA's Spaceport," edited with Patrick Moore: A collection of oral histories by people from the Kennedy Space Center.
Current or Projected Exhibits
"Living and Working in Orbit": Exhibit on the era of the Space Shuttle/Space Station
Recent Publications
"Space Stations: Base Camps to the Stars." Washington, DC: Smithsonian Books, 2003.
"Flight: A Celebration of 100 Years in Art and Literature." New York: Welcome Books, 2003. Edited with Anne Collins Goodyear, Anthony M. Springer, and Bertram Ulrich.
"Taking Off: A Century of Manned Flight." Reston, VA: American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 2003. Edited with Jonathan Coopersmith.
"To Reach the High Frontier: A History of U.S Launch Vehicles." Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002. Edited with Dennis R. Jenkins.
"Seasons in the Sun: The Story of Big League Baseball in Missouri." Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2002.
"Imagining Space: Achievements, Predictions, Possibilities, 1950-2050. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2001. Co-authored with Howard E. McCurdy.
"Reconsidering Sputnik: Forty Years Since the Soviet Satellite." Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000. Co-edited with John M. Logsdon and Robert W. Smith.
Innovation and the Development of Flight. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1999. Editor.