PROFESSIONAL BIOGRAPHY OF DR. ROBERT L. FORWARD

Professional Biography of Dr. Robert L. Forward

Dr. Robert L. Forward is a science consultant, writer, and futurist specializing in studies of exotic physical phenomena and future space exploration with an emphasis on advanced space propulsion concepts. Dr. Forward obtained his B.S. in Physics from University of Maryland in 1954, M.S. in Applied Physics from UCLA in 1958, and Ph.D. in Gravitational Physics from University of Maryland in 1965. For his thesis he built and operated the world's first bar antenna for the detection of gravitational radiation. The antenna is now at the Smithsonian museum.

Dr. Forward has 40 years of experience in advanced space propulsion, experimental general relativity, gravitational and inertial sensors, low noise electronics, and space sciences. For 31 years, from 1956 until 1987, Dr. Forward worked at the Hughes Aircraft Company Research Laboratories in Malibu, California in positions of increasing responsibility, culminating with the position of Senior Scientist on the Director's staff. During that time he built and operated the world's first laser interferometer gravitational radiation detector, invented the rotating gravitational mass sensor, published over 70 technical publications, and was awarded 18 patents. He left Hughes in 1987 in order to spend more time writing and consulting under his own company, Forward Unlimited.

From 1983 to the present, Dr. Forward has had a series of contracts from the Department of Defense and NASA totalling more than $820,000, to explore the forefront of physics and engineering in order to find new energy sources and new propulsion concepts that could produce breakthroughs in space power and propulsion. In one study Dr. Forward was able to show that the futuristic concept of antiproton annihilation propulsion was technically feasible, although expensive. As a result of his study, the Air Force set up special programs to support antiproton annihilation propulsion research, which are still ongoing today.

In other studies, Dr. Forward found that high strength rapidly-rotating space tethers could revolutionize space travel by providing a space transportation network that could move payloads from LEO to GEO to the Lunar surface, Mars and back without the expenditure of rocket propellant. In 1994 he formed a partnership, Tethers Unlimited, with Dr. Robert P. Hoyt, the inventor of the Hoytether, a highly-survivable, fail-safe interconnected multiline space tether with a probability of surviving cuts by space debris that is 500 times better than a single-line tether. In the past two years, the partnership has received tether contracts exceeding $200,000, and will shortly negotiate a two-year $600,000 NASA contract for the development of manufacturing methods for Hoytethers. This work should lead to flight experiments and potentially a revolution in interorbit and interplanetary space travel.

Dr. Forward is a recognized expert on future technology, especially exotic physics and future space travel. He has given invited, paid lectures to the Okayama Prefecture in Japan, the 1990 NASA/Lewis Vision 21 Workshop, and four National Space Society International Space Conferences. He has presented invited review papers on the feasibility of interstellar flight as part of a 1976 JPL Flyby Celebration, the JPL "Gossamer Spacecraft" workshop, and the 1985 IAF Congress, and also an invited paper to the 1985 IAF Congress reviewing the entire US advanced space propulsion program. He was a visiting lecturer on advanced space propulsion at the 1993 summer session of the International Space University. In 1994 he was the Keynote Speaker at the Practical Robotic Interstellar Flight Conference.

Dr. Forward's extensive review and bibliography, "A National Space Program for Interstellar Exploration" is published in Future Space Programs 1975 of the House Subcommittee on Space Science and Applications. In 1990, he was invited by the AIAA to write the advanced space propulsion section of the special propulsion issue of Aeronautics and Astronautics. In 1991 he was asked by the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum to be a contributor of an article on interstellar travel to a Columbus 500th Anniversary Commemorative Book, Where Next Columbus?. In 1993 he was asked to write the advanced space propulsion section of the US Air Force Academy sponsored textbook on space propulsion. He is a regular contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, with invited review articles, "Ships to the Stars" in the 1988 Yearbook, and "Antimatter" in the 1993 Yearbook.

In addition to 126 technical publications and 19 patents, Dr. Forward has written 69 popular science articles and 10 short stories for publications such Omni, New Scientist, Encyclopaedia Britannica Yearbook, Science Digest, Focus, Science 80, Analog, and Galaxy. His 13 published book-length works include three science fact books, Future Magic (Avon, 1988), replaced by Indistinguishable From Magic (Baen 1995), and Mirror Matter: Pioneering Antimatter Physics with Joel Davis (Wiley, 1988), and ten hard science fiction novels, Dragon's Egg (Del Rey, 1981) and its sequel Starquake (Del Rey, 1985), Rocheworld (Baen, 1989) and its four sequels, Return to Rocheworld with Julie Forward Fuller (Baen, 1992), Ocean Under The Ice with Martha Dodson Forward (Baen 1994), Marooned on Eden with Martha Dodson Forward (Baen, 1993), and Rescued From Paradise with Julie Forward Fuller (Baen, 1995); Martian Rainbow (Del Rey, 1991), Timemaster (Tor, 1992), and Camelot 30K (Tor, 1993). He has also turned in his eleventh novel Saturn Rukh to Tor Books, which is scheduled for release in March 1997. His novels and short stories are "hard" science fiction, where the science is as accurate as possible. As a writer, Dr. Forward writes under his full professional name of "Dr. Robert L. Forward" in order to distinguish himself from his son Robert D. Forward who writes under the name of "Bob Forward".

Dr. Forward is a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society, Associate Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and a member of the American Physical Society, Sigma Xi, Sigma Pi Sigma, National Space Society, Interstellar Propulsion Society, Science-Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and Authors Guild.

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13 October 1996

This page was last edited July 7, 2006