David Baker
From The Space Library
 David Baker | |
| Occupation | Engineer, Author, Editor |
|---|---|
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Notable Works | Manned Spaceflight, The Rocket |
David Baker is a British citizen, David translated an early love of aviation, flying and space technology into a career that has seen him work all over the world in a variety of professional capacities. From school in Hertfordshire he went to university in the US and obtained a Ph.D in physics before moving laterally to take engineering degrees that took him to NASA and the US aerospace community in the early 1960s.
Joining the space programme during the Apollo years he worked to develop advanced concepts for keeping astronauts on the moon for extended periods. This culminated in the last three Apollo flights, each staying three days on the moon for geological exploration using a rover vehicle. During the 1960s he also worked for a brief period with the US Department of Defence on the Igloo White programme, now a declassified intelligence gathering activity in Vietnam. From there David worked on development of NASA’s Shuttle and, later during the 1980s, to commercialise payloads and to integrate aerospace technologies in Asian countries.
After forming one of the UK’s first space consulting companies in 1984 he helped London banking and insurance businesses liaise with Wall Street counterparts and NASA to develop space commercialisation. Throughout, David has maintained a passion for things with wings and has written several hundred articles and more than 70 books – more than 40 for US school children – on aerospace histories and to encourage careers in science and engineering. David appears regularly on the electronic media and has been editor of Aerospace Review (Smiths’ Industries in-house magazine), Jane’s Aircraft Upgrades and Jane’s Space Directory. He is currently the editor of the BIS' Spaceflight Magazine.
His real love is the history of aviation, fuelled as a boy by endless hours reading issues of Air Pictorial, among others!
