Department of History

James R. Hansen has written about aerospace history and the history of technology for the past twenty-six years. Jim has published books and articles on a wide variety of topics ranging from the early days of aviation, the first nuclear fusion reactors, the Moon landings, to the environmental history of golf courses.

His most recent book, First Man (Simon & Schuster, 2005), the first and only authorized biography of Neil Armstrong, the first man on the Moon, spent three weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and has already garnered two major book awards, the American Astronautical Society's Eugene Emme Prize for Astronautical Literature and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics' Outstanding Book Award. First Man has also been published in the United Kingdom and will soon appear in Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Croatian.

In 1995 the National Aeronautics and Space Administration nominated Hansen's book Spaceflight Revolution for a Pulitzer Prize, the only time NASA has ever made such a nomination. His book From the Ground Up (1988) won the History Book Award of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. His scholarship has also been honored with the Robert H. Goddard Award from the National Space Club and certificates of distinction from the Air Force Historical Foundation. His newest books, The Bird is on the Wing (Texas A&M University Press) and The Wind and Beyond (NASA) explore the role of aerodynamics in the progress of the airplane in America. The latter is the first in a six volume series prepared by Hansen and a team of his graduate students for NASA. In 2005 it won the Society for the History of Technology's Eugene Ferguson Prize for Outstanding Reference Work.

Dr. Hansen has served on a number of important advisory boards and panels, including the Research Advisory Board of the National Air and Space Museum, the Editorial Advisory Board of the Smithsonian Institution Press, and the Advisory Board for the Archives of Aerospace Exploration at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. He is also a past vice-president of the Virginia Air and Space Museum in Hampton, Virginia.

At Auburn University, Hansen has just been named Director of the Honors College.

A native of Fort Wayne, Indiana, he earned his PhD at Ohio State University in 1981. Students who have earned graduate degrees under Hansen's direction at Auburn currently hold positions at the National Air and Space Museum, U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. Air Force Air War College, and with the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

• PhD, The Ohio State University
• MA, The Ohio State University
• BA, Indiana University

Books

• First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong (Simon & Schuster, 2005)
• From the Ground Up, by James R. Hansen and Fred E. Weick (Smithsonian, 1988)
• The Bird Is on the Wing: Aerodynamics and the Progress of the American Airplane (Texas A&M University Press, 2003)
• The Wind and Beyond (NASA, 2003), a six-volume series prepared by Hansen and a team of his graduate students for NASA
• Spaceflight Revolution: NASA Langley Research Center From Sputnik to Apollo (NASA History Series, 1995)

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