Smithsonian Institution

Senior Curator, National Air and Space Museum

Senior Curator

About

I am Roger D. Launius, senior curator in the Division of Space History at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. Between 1990 and 2002 I served as chief historian of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. After completing my Ph.D. in 1982 I worked as an historian with the U.S. Air Force before moving to NASA.

I was born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1954 and grew up in Greenville, South Carolina. I graduated from Graceland College (now Graceland University), Lamoni, Iowa, in 1976 and received the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in history in 1978 and 1982 at Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, with major fields in American frontier and military history. I pursued my longstanding interest in the field of history when as an undergraduate I couldn't conquer the higher math required for biology.

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