Career:

James Oberg had a 22-year career as a space engineer in Houston, where he specialized in NASA space shuttle operations for orbital rendezvous, as a contractor employee. He worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston 1975-1997. 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.

NASA Association:

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 1984 "Technical Person of the Year". In 1997 he received the "Sustained Superior Performance" award for designing the complex first Space Station assembly mission.

Books:

Among his books are: Red Star in Orbit, generally considered the best inside portrait of the history of Soviet space activities through 1981; New Earths, the world's first non-fiction treatment of the far- out futuristic topic of "terraforming" or "planetary engineering"; Pioneering Space, a broad and insightful view of the human side of the spaceflight experience; and The New Race for Space.

World Authority:

Oberg is widely regarded as a world authority on the Russian space program. He has several times been invited to testify before Congress about the problems facing the Russian space industry. He is also on the editorial board of "Air & Space" magazine, sponsored by the Smithsonian's "National Air and Space Museum", and of SPECTRUM, the monthly magazine of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers.

Space Consultant:

Mr. Oberg has been the space consultant for ABC News and several foreign networks. He has also been the space correspondent for United Press International, and has written columns for space Internet sites from space.com to Galaxy Online to msnbc.com. His book "