Philipp Aumann

Historisch-Technisches Museum Peenemünde (D)

Philipp Aumann is head of exhibitions, collections and research at Peenemünde Historical Technical Museum. His work focuses on the social and cultural history of the Peenemünde armament center, and on educational mediation of National Socialist historical sites. After completing his PhD at Deutsches Museum in Munich in 2008 he held fellowships at several German museums. Aumann has published widely on the cultural history of science and technology, and on museology. Recent book publications include Mode und Methode: Die Kybernetik in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (2009); Der Himmel: Wunschbild und Weltverständnis (2011, ed.); and Rüstung auf dem Prüfstand: Kummersdorf, Peenemünde und die totale Mobilmachung (2015).

Thore Bjørnvig

Independent Scholar, Copenhagen (DK)

Thore Bjørnvig is an independent scholar and associate member of the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. His research focuses on intersections between spaceflight, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), popular culture and religion. Together with Roger D. Launius and Virgiliu Pop, Bjørnvig has co-edited a special issue of Astropolitics on spaceflight and religion (2013). He also has an article on LEGO's first outer space play theme in the forthcoming volume Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo (2016), edited by Alexander Geppert. Bjørnvig blogs on astroculture for the Danish popular science site videnskab.dk as well as on the Nordic popular science news site sciencenordic.com.

Katherine Boyce-Jacino

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD (USA)

Katherine Boyce-Jacino is a PhD candidate in the Humanities Center at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Prior to arriving at Johns Hopkins, she earned a BA with honors in 2010 from Wesleyan University in History and Astronomy. In 2011 Boyce-Jacino was a visiting research fellow at the Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte in Berlin, and from 2013 to 2014 a visiting doctoral student at the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. Her dissertation project "'To the Planetarium': Cosmology, Modernity, and Representation in the Weimar Republic" is a cultural history of the planetarium in interwar Germany.

Daniel Brandau

Freie Universität Berlin (D)

Daniel Brandau is a PhD candidate and former research associate in the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. He studied history, German language and literature and educational science at Universität Bielefeld (BA, MEdu) and modern European history at the University of Cambridge (MPhil). Brandau has held fellowships at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, and the Institut für Europäische Geschichte in Mainz. His dissertation project focuses on the "Plausible Future: Rocket Enthusiasm in Germany, 1920–1960," studying visions of future spaceflight and their societal impact from the period of early rocket societies to the first manned missions. His most recent publication is an article 'Demarcations in the Void: Early Satellites and the Making of Outer Space' (Historical Social Research 2015).

Jana Bruggmann

Freie Universität Berlin (D)

Jana Bruggmann is a PhD candidate and research associate in the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. She received a BA in Art and Design Education from Hochschule Luzern Design & Kunst in 2009, and an MA in Curating and Museum Education from Zürcher Hochschule der Künste in 2011. From 2012 to 2013 Bruggmann worked as research assistant at Kunsthaus Zug. Her dissertation project "The Earth from Space: The Making of a Cosmic View in Germany and France in the First Half of the Twentieth Century" focuses on pictorial depictions of the Earth seen from outer space, from those of Camille Flammarion to the renowned space photographs Earthrise and Blue Marble. Publications include an article about images of the blue planet avant la lettre, 'Vom Globus zum Planeten: Camille Flammarion, Bruno H. Bürgel und der Blick zurück' (in Des Sirius goldene Küsten: Astronomie und Weltraumfiktion, forthcoming 2016).

Ralf Bülow

Independent Scholar, Berlin (D)

Ralf Bülow is an independent scholar and associate member of the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. He studied computer science, mathematics and philosophy in Bonn, and completed a PhD thesis on mathematical logics. During the 1980s Bülow worked at the Deutsches Museum in Munich. Later he worked as a freelance journalist reporting on science and technology. Since 1996 Bülow has participated in numerous exhibition projects on computers, spaceflight, astronomy and physics, including an exhibition on Albert Einstein. He has also published on the history of science fiction. In 2004 he re-issued Ri Tokko's Das Automatenzeitalter, a German utopian novel originally published in 1930. In his younger days, Bülow was an avid watcher of space-related television shows and documentaries.

Paul E. Ceruzzi

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC (USA)

Paul Ceruzzi is a curator in the Space History Department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. He received his BA in American Studies from Yale University in 1970, and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Kansas in 1981. Prior to joining the Smithsonian, he taught history at Clemson University in South Carolina. At the museum, Ceruzzi has worked on several public exhibitions, most recently "Time and Navigation," which covers the art and science of navigation from the eighteenth century to the present. He is currently working on a major renovation of the Boeing Milestones of Flight Hall, scheduled for a summer 2016 opening. Ceruzzi has written several books on the history of computing and aerospace, including Beyond the Limits: Flight Enters the Computer Age (1989); Internet Alley: High Technology in Tysons Corner, 1945–2005 (2008); Computing: A Concise History (2012); and most recently Time and Navigation (2015, co-ed.).

Martin Collins

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC (USA)

Martin Collins is a curator in the Space History Department at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. His research focuses on the history of the United States in the world after 1945, as seen through the history of technology. He serves as editor of the journal History and Technology and is managing editor of the book series Artefacts: Studies in the History of Science and Technology, published by the Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. Collins is currently finishing a history of communications satellites and globalization in the 1990s, as seen through the multinational satellite telephony venture, Iridium.

Benjamin Dittmann

Independent Researcher, Berlin (D)

Benjamin Dittmann is a freelance researcher, writer and editor. He holds an MA in German literature and philosophy from Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn. In addition to an ongoing dissertation project on Thomas Bernhard, he has created several dramatic readings for the international literature festival Lit.Cologne, Literaturhaus Frankfurt and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Dittmann is also founder of the Kuro Moto research think tank for unknown knowledge transfer, an open network that develops alternative formats for educational entertainment. His current research projects focus on spiritualist UFO-contactee groups in post-war Germany and the rise of Babylon as a cultural and political issue in Berlin around 1900. Dittmann lives and works in Berlin and has always known that he would die in a spaceship one day.

Alexander C.T. Geppert

New York University/Freie Universität Berlin (USA/D)

Alexander Geppert holds a joint appointment as associate professor of European history at New York University's new campus in Shanghai and its Center for European and Mediterranean Studies in New York City. From 2010 to 2016 he directed the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. Recent book publications include Fleeting Cities: Imperial Expositions in Fin-de-Siècle Europe (2010, 2013); Wunder: Poetik und Politik des Staunens im 20. Jahrhundert (2011, co-ed.); Imagining Outer Space: European Astroculture in the Twentieth Century (2012, 2016; ed.); Obsession der Gegenwart: Zeit im 20. Jahrhundert (2015, co-ed.); and Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo (forthcoming 2016, ed.) At present, Geppert is completing a comprehensive cultural history of outer space in the European imagination, entitled The Future in the Stars: Time and Transcendence in the European Space Age, 1942–1972.

Martina Heßler

Helmut-Schmidt Universität, Hamburg (D)

Martina Heßler has been professor of modern social and economic history and history of technology at Helmut-Schmidt Universität in Hamburg since 2010. Her research focuses on urban history and the history of technology. Book publications include Urban Modernity: Cultural Innovation in the Second Industrial Revolution (2010, with Miriam Levin and others); and Kulturgeschichte der Technik (2012). Currently Heßler is working on the man-machine-relationship in the twentieth century.

Dirk van Laak

Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen (D)

Dirk van Laak has been professor of contemporary history at Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen since 2007. He studied German literature and history at Universität Essen and completed his PhD at FernUniversität Hagen in 1993 and has held visiting professorships in Chicago (1995–1996), Tübingen (2002–2003) and Freiburg (2003–2004). His main research interests are German and European history, and the history of globalization, colonialism, the history of planning and technology, the history of historiography and its relationship to fiction. Book publications include Weiße Elefanten: Anspruch und Scheitern technischer Großprojekte im 20. Jahrhundert (1999); Imperiale Infrastruktur: Deutsche Planungen für eine Erschließung Afrikas 1880 bis 1960 (2004); and Über alles in der Welt: Deutscher Imperialismus im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (2005). At present, van Laak is completing a book on the everyday and a cultural history of infrastructures.

Natalija Majsova

University of Ljubljana (SI)

Natalija Majsova is a researcher and teaching assistant at the University of Ljubljana, Centre for Cultural and Religious Studies and Department of Cultural Studies (2012–) and a post-doctoral research fellow at the Erudio Business School (2015–2017). She earned her PhD in cultural studies from the University of Ljubljana, having defended her dissertation titled Outer Space in Contemporary Russian Film in 2015. She holds an MA in cultural studies (2011) and a BA in international relations (2010), both from the University of Ljubljana. Since 2015, Majsova has been expert associate of the Cultural Center of European Space Technologies (KSEVT) in Vitanje, Slovenia. Her research interests (and recent publications) lie in the fields of cultural studies theory, post-socialist cultural and film studies, and (Space Age) aesthetics.

Michael J. Neufeld

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Washington, DC (USA)

Michael Neufeld is a senior curator in the Space History Division of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. From 2007 to 2011 he served as Division Chair. Born and raised in Canada, he has four history degrees, including a PhD from Johns Hopkins University in 1984. Neufeld has written three books, The Skilled Metalworkers of Nuremberg: Craft and Class in the Industrial Revolution (1989); The Rocket and the Reich: Peenemünde and the Coming of the Ballistic Missile Era (1995), which won two book prizes; and Von Braun: Dreamer of Space, Engineer of War (2007), which won three awards. He has also edited or co-edited five others: Planet Dora: A Memoir of the Holocaust and the Birth of the Space Age (1997); The Bombing of Auschwitz: Should the Allies Have Attempted it? (2003); Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: An Autobiography (2010); Spacefarers: Images of Astronauts and Cosmonauts in the Heroic Era of Spaceflight (2013); and Milestones of Space: Eleven Iconic Objects from the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (2014). More recently, Neufeld has published articles on the history of US planetary exploration since 1989 and on the 1960s origins of neutral buoyancy training for EVA.

Regina Peldszus

Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt, Bonn (D)

Regina Peldszus holds a PhD in Design Research with an emphasis on Human Systems Integration in future mission scenarios from Kingston University, London. From 2013 to 2015 she was a research fellow and then external consultant with the European Space Agency (ESA), based at the European Space Operations Centre's Studies and Special Projects Division, where she focused on tacit operational practice and system resilience. In 2016, Peldszus joined the German Aerospace Center (DLR) Space Administration, working at the intersection of technology governance and development of multilateral infrastructure in the department of Space Situational Awareness. Recent publications include 'The Perfect Boring Situation' (Acta Astronautica 2014); 'Kubrick's Interaction with the Aerospace Industry during the Production of 2001' (in Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives, 2015); and 'Architectural Experiments in Space: Orbital Stations, Simulators and Speculative Design, 1968–1982' (in Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo, forthcoming 2016).

Robert Poole

University of Central Lancashire, Preston (UK)

Robert Poole is Guild research fellow and reader in history at the University of Central Lancashire, and an associate member of the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the author of Earthrise: How Man Saw the Earth (2008). Recent publications include 'What Was Whole about the Whole Earth?' (in The Surveillance Imperative, 2014); '2001: A Space Odyssey and the Dawn of Man' (in Stanley Kubrick: New Perspectives, 2015); and 'The Myth of Progress: 2001: A Space Odyssey' (in Limiting Outer Space: Astroculture After Apollo, forthcoming 2016).

Tilmann Siebeneichner

Freie Universität Berlin (D)

Tilmann Siebeneichner is research associate in the Emmy Noether Research Group "The Future in the Stars: European Astroculture and Extraterrestrial Life in the Twentieth Century" at Freie Universität Berlin. He holds a degree in philosophy and history, and graduated from Georg-August-Universität Göttingen in 2011 with a PhD dissertation on the workers' militia in the GDR. From 2010 to 2012 Siebeneichner worked as research associate at the DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Generationengeschichte" in Göttingen. Recent publications include Proletarischer Mythos und realer Sozialismus: Die Kampfgruppen der Arbeiterklasse in der DDR (2014); and 'Europas Griff nach den Sternen: Das Weltraumlabor Spacelab, 1973–1998' (in Themenportal Europäische Geschichte 2015). His current research focuses on the militarization of outer space in the 1970s.

Helmuth Trischler

Deutsches Museum, München (D)

Helmuth Trischler is head of research at the Deutsches Museum, professor of modern history and history of technology at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, and director of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. His main research interests encompass knowledge societies and innovation cultures in international comparison; science, technology and European integration; history of museums and collections; and environmental history. Trischler has published widely on space history, including The 'Triple Helix' of Space: German Space Activities in a European Perspective (2002). Recent book publications include Building Europe on Expertise: Innovators, Organizers, Networkers (2014, with Martin Kohlrausch); Welcome to the Anthropocene: The Earth in Our Hands (2015, with Nina Möllers and Christian Schwägerl); and Cycling and Recycling: Histories of Sustainable Practices (2016, with Ruth Oldenziel).

Helmut Zander

Université de Fribourg (CH)

Helmut Zander is professor for comparative history of religions and interreligious dialogue at Université de Fribourg in Switzerland. His research interests include the history of non-hegemonic groups, practices and ideas; and the comparative history of religions, especially the question of why religious cultures develop differently. Zander's book publications include Geschichte der Seelenwanderung in Europa: Alternative religiöse Traditionen von der Antike bis heute (1999); Anthroposophie in Deutschland: Theosophische Weltanschauung und gesellschaftliche Praxis, 1884–1945 (2007); Rudolf Steiner: Die Biografie (2011); and, most recently, "Europäische" Religionsgeschichte: Religiöse Zugehörigkeit durch Entscheidung – Konsequenzen im interkulturellen Vergleich (2016).