me

I am a journalist and illustrator specialized in the history of space exploration. Native of Moscow, then Soviet Union, I attended School of Journalism at Moscow State University. Upon moving to the United States in 1993, I earned bachelor's degree from Syracuse University's Newhouse School of Public Communications. Currently, I am working as a contributing writer to the Air & Space Smithsonian, Popular Mechanics and the Aerospace America magazines, in addition to publishing RussianSpaceWeb.com -- a unique collection of news, historical information, photography and interactive graphics on space exploration.

In 2013, I completed writing and illustrating a large-format book on the history of Russian plans for space exploration published by Apogee Prime.

During my years in Moscow, I worked as a contributing editor for the Astronomy and Cosmonautics series of Moscow Polytech Society and later as an aviation and space reporter for Nezavisimaya Gazeta, one of the first independent dailies in Russia. I visited all leading Russian space centers including Baikonur Cosmodrome and interviewed many legendary personalities in the Russian space program, among them Boris Chertok, Yuri Semenov and Alexei Leonov.

My articles, artwork, animations and photography appeared in practically every major space publication around the world and in many general news media outlets including:

  • Aerospace America, US
  • Air & Cosmos, France
  • Air & Space Smithsonian, US
  • BBC, UK
  • Bild am Sonntag, Germany
  • Channel I Ostankino, Russian television
  • Discover, US
  • Financial Times, UK
  • Flieger Revue, Germany
  • Focus BBC, UK
  • GEO, Germany
  • Gong, Germany
  • IEEE Spectrum, US
  • Illustreret Videnskab, Denmark
  • Journal of the British Interplanetary Society, UK
  • Nonproliferation Review, UK
  • Popular Mechanics (the US and Russian editions)
  • Sky at Night, BBC, UK
  • Science, US
  • Science and Technology Trends, Quarterly Review, Japan
  • Space Illustrated, US
  • Spaceflight, UK
  • Space Travel Guidebook, Random House, Japan
  • Süddeutsche Zeitung, Germany
  • Technology Review, US
  • Twenty-First Century Bimonthly, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, China
  • Wired.com, US
  • X Prize Cup and Google Earth

 


SELECTED WRITINGS:

Autobiographical:

NG

Dear Sputnik: How a simple sphere changed my life

 


 

aviation

 

Delays Likely For Russian Lunar Lander Program

China Seeks Human Lunar-landing Technology

Russia Is Still Inching Toward The Moon

Russia’s New ISS Lab Detoured En Route To Launchpad

Russia Expected To Quickly Wrap Up Soyuz Launch Failure Probe

 


 

PopTech

 

JOURNALISTIC PORTFOLIO

 

A profile of the Russian super-heavy launcher

NASA: Lunar 'Gateway' Is Still Our Best Bet for Putting Boots on the Moon

NASA’s Return to the Moon Could Include a Reusable Lunar Lander

Russia Is Riled Up About Being Left Behind In Space

Russia's New Rocket Project Might Resurrect A Soviet-Era Colossus

Russia's Soyuz Spacecraft Could Find New Life As A Lunar Taxi

The Soviet Laser Space Pistol, Revealed

Ukraine Is Building A Spaceplane For...Saudi Arabia?

Russia's Space Agency Might Break Up With The U.S. To Get With China

Russia Is Now Working on a Super Heavy Rocket of Its Own

This Was a Huge Week for the NASA-Russia Lunar Space Station and the Future of Spaceflight

Russia's Plan To Build a Luxury Hotel on the ISS

Why Does Russia Have a Secret ISS Experiment?

The Rocket That Launched Sputnik and Started the Space Race

How Sputnik Worked

Russia Will Team Up With Nasa To Build A Lunar Space Station

Long Abandoned Soviet Tech Might Help China Land on the Moon

This Russian ISS Module Has Been Delayed For a Decade and It's Still Not Ready to Fly

Here Is NASA's Plan for a Space Station That Orbits the Moon

This Is NASA's Plan For Humanity's Return to the Moon, and Beyond

The Model T of Space: Russian Soyuz Spacecraft Turns 50

Why NASA May Ferry the First Cosmonaut to the Moon

A First Peek at Russia's New Space Cargo Ship

U.S. and Russian Scientists Are Making Plans to Go Back to the Moon Together

Russia's Workhorse Soyuz Space Taxi Gets a Makeover

Russia's Plan To Spin Off a New Space Station From the ISS

Declassified Photos Show the Soviet Union's Hero Space Dogs in Color

Russian Launch Inaugurates New Spaceport

Putin's Shiny New Spaceport Is About To Launch Its First Rocket

Astronomers Can't Explain How These Trillion-Degree Quasars Got So Hot

Did the New Russia-Europe Mars Mission Narrowly Escape a Launch Disaster?

Russia Actually Lights Rockets With an Oversized Wooden Match

How Mir Became Humanity's Foothold in Space

The Soviet Union's Secret Moon Base That Never Was

Revealed: Russia's Manned Lunar Lander

Russia's Big Plan To Finally Put Cosmonauts on the Moon

This Is NASA's Very First Idea for a Space Station

Here Is the Soviet Union's Secret Space Cannon

5 Places Russia Will Send Its Space Probes Next

One Russian's Plan to Prove Once And For All That Americans Landed on the Moon

The Russian Ancestors of SpaceX's New Dragon

Another Disaster for Russia’s Space Workhorse

Did the Soviets Actually Build a Better Space Shuttle?

The Hidden History of the Soviet Satellite-Killer

Inside Russian Spacesuit Factory

Russia Is Building an Inflatable Space Module of its Own

Photo-essay from Moscow's Air and Space Show, MAKS-2013

Inside Russia’s Spectacular Rocket Disintegration

 


 

Air and Space

 

JOURNALISTIC PORTFORLIO

 

What’s Going on With Russia’s Space Program?

Turns Out Alexei Leonov’s First Spacewalk Wasn’t Quite as Dramatic as We Thought

Russia Just Selected a New Group of Cosmonauts. What For?

Inside a Soviet ICBM Silo

The Day a Soviet Moon Rover Refused to Stop

Laika Declassified

The First Fatal Spaceflight

Georgy Grechko, 1931-2017

The Strange Trip of Soyuz T-15

A Rare Look at the Russian Side of the Space Station

"Not a Woman’s Profession"

The Spaceport in Siberia

Space cooperation: A U.S. bargaining chip in the Ukraine standoff?

Planes, Ships…and Caspian Monsters

Valentina Tereshkova’s Journal Sheds New Light on Her Historic Spaceflight

Scenes from MAKS-2013 Airshow

Disaster in Xichang ("The best long-form story on the web!" See Feb. 12, 2013, entry: longreads.com)

Mission Possible (Preview of the Phobos-Grunt mission)

Lunar Clipper (With rich tourists traveling to Earth orbit, can a cruise around the moon be far behind?)

The rest of the rocket scientists (Story of the German rocket team in USSR)

Tsiolkovsky (Biography of the Russian space pioneer)

Fallen Star (How Mir came down)

Copies of published articles are available in PDF format upon request

 


 

Ars Technica

 

Russia’s Proton rocket falls on hard times

Russia pushing to partner with NASA on lunar gateway

 

 

planetary

 

JOURNALISTIC PORTFOLIO

 

Space station partners weigh in on NASA’s Deep Space Gateway plans

NASA, ISS partners quietly completing design of possible Moon-orbiting space station

Russia’s Proton rocket grounded by poor quality control

Mystery of Russia’s doomed Progress spacecraft may delay next ISS crew launch

Spektr-RG sees (x-ray) light at the end of the tunnel

An international outpost near the Moon gets closer to reality

ExoMars domino effect

ExoMars rover seeks exit from dire straits

Russia approves its 10-year space strategy

 


 

Aerospace America

 

Ukraine Vies For Place In Crowded Launch Market

Getting Its Space Mojo Back

ANALYSIS: Space Collaboration at risk

VIEWPOINT: The case for optimism

Collateral Damage: Impacts of Russian-Ukrainian conflict extend beyond the here and now

 


 

BBC

 

What would Mars probe failure mean for Russian space?

Russia, India plan return to the Moon

China considers big rocket power

Russian future ship to leave the drawing board

Difficult rebirth for Russian space science

Russia to resume ISS construction

Russia plots return to Venus

Crunch time for Russia Mars probe

Russia 'to save its ISS modules'

Russia mulls rocket power 'first'

Russia to unveil spaceship plans

Russia to approve new Moon rocket

Why did the USSR build a "copy" of the space shuttle?

Forgotten cradle of the space age

Future Russian-European spacecraft (3D artwork, consulting)

 


 

TR

 

Russia's Post-Shuttle Space Plans

 


 

sen

 

SELECTED JOURNALISTIC PORTOFLIO

 


 

THE BACK STORY

 

Russia Reveals Vision for Manned Spaceflight

Russian Return to a Martian Moon

Russia to Delay Martian Moon Mission

Europe to Join Russia in Building Next Space Shuttle

Highlights of the 2005 Paris Air Show

Russians Propose A New Space Shuttle

U.S.-Russian Space Cooperation in Doubt

Saving the station (The prospects and challenges of the International Space Station)

Can Russia Fill NASA’s shoes? (The outlook for the ISS after the Columbia tragedy)

Rockets R' Us (A review of Russia's rocket fleet)

Arianespace Picks Up the Pieces (An interview with Clayton Mowry, President of Arianespace)

Russia gives International Space Station a lift

Taking tourists for a ride (in space) (A look at the Russian suborbital tourist cruiser)

US Rocket with Russian engine gets to work (Inaugural Atlas-V launch)

Russia’s Nuclear Submarine Wastes Still Far From Secure


 

Space News

Industry Insiders Foresaw Delay of Russia’s Phobos-Grunt

 


 

PRESENTATIONS AND CONFERENCES:

I work to inform general public, as well as policy makers and aerospace industry professionals on developments and trends in the Russian space program and about other space-related issues:

 

Space Security 2014: Implementation and Compliance

A Conference at the United Nations Insitute for Disarmament Research, UNIDIR, Geneva, Switzerland, March 19-20, 2014.

 

“Russia’s Space Plans”

Secure World Foundation, Washington, D.C., November 2011

 


I also provided commentary and was quoted by numerous publications and leading mass media organizations, including:

The National Public Radio

The New York Times

The Washington Post, (-)

The Los Angeles Times

Nature magazine

Science magazine

Popular Mechanics (-)

Daily Beast

Associated Press

...also, see my interview with the Space Safety magazine

 

SELECTED RADIO AND TV APPEARANCES:

I regularly appear as a guest on various TV and radio programs around the world, including Russia Today, the Voice of Russia, CNN Next, CNN International's Foreign Correspondents, BBC, German Public Radio, Voice of America, France 25, and on various other radio and TV shows.

 

The Voice of Russia:

Prospects for methane-fueled rockets

Uphill battle for Phobos-Grunt

The last launch

Yuri Gagarin: First man in Space

 

The Space Show with Dr. David Livingston:

Today and tomorrow of the Russian space program

 

John Batchelor's HOTEL MARS radio show:

Proton's return to flight, (October 2013)

October 2013

August 2013

 


SELECTED INTERACTIVE GRAPHICS:

My graphics adore numerous mass media publications, books, internal space industry documents and they even made it to the International Space Station:

Pinterest portfolio page

 

quote

Michel Denis, Flight Operations Director of the European Space Agency's ExoMars project, conducts pre-launch briefing with the help of RussianSpaceWeb.com's unique artwork. The original of this particular graphic can be viewed here.


PTK

Like other Roskosmos leaders before him, Dmitry Rogozin used artwork from RussianSpaceWeb.com in his most high-profile events. The original used in this particular material can be found here.

 

insider content

 

Book

UPDATE:

This book is out of print

(The ad above is for historical purposes only)


 

In the morning fog at Gagarin's pad of Baikonur Cosmodrome, witnessing the launch of the first expedition to the International Space Station, October 2000.


Inside the Assembly and Testing Building, MIK, at Site 31 at Baikonur Cosmodrome, during the preparations for the launch of the European Cluster spacecraft, July 2000.


On the assembly floor at the Baikonur Cosmodrome before the launch of the first space tourist to the International Space Station in April 2001.


With Yuri Grigoriev, Deputy Designer General of RKK Energia inside the company's Control and Testing Station, KIS, in Korolev, Russia.


At the Launch Complex 39A of the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, with the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the launch pad.


Next to the flown and now lost Buran orbiter (top) and its full-scale prototype at Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.


In the clean room of RKK Energia processing building at Site 254, Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan.


Working in the field. See what can be achieved with a simple camera. Moscow Aviation Institute


Searching for a mysterious Soviet lunar lander at the demo room of the Moscow Aviation Institute.


At the helm of the Almaz (OPS-4) military space station at the NPO Mash development center in Reutov, Russia.


A unique "selfie" inside of a gigantic thermal testing chamber of the NIIKhIMMash research facility near Sergiev Posad, in the company of Vladimir Galyaev, a leading specialist. The fuselage of the Buran orbiter, Mir space station and other spacecraft went through rigorous trials here. Giant mirrors inside the facility are used to imitate solar radiation.


Near the monument to the legendary Soviet rocket designer Mikhail Yangel on the grounds of KB Yuzhnoe development center. Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine.


First journalist on the closed Gorodomlya Island in the Seliger Lake, which was a home of the German rocket team in the USSR in 1946-1953.


Discussing the Soyuz spacecraft on CNN's NEXT.


Discussing NASA return to the Moon on CNN's Foreign Correspondents.


Kliper

"Piloting" a full-scale simulator of the Kliper winged reusable orbiter at RKK Energia's Control and Test Station, KIS, in Korolev, Russia.


Kourou

Navigating the Kourou River through the rain forest of French Guiana near the European space launch site in the equatorial South America.


Vostok

Next to the very descent module of the Vostok spacecraft which carried Yuri Gagarin into space and back to Earth during the historic first human mission into space on April 12, 1961.


FOBS

Next to a Soviet orbital bombardment vehicle. Click to enlarge.