Paul Gilster

Paul Gilster is a full-time writer who focuses on space technology and its implications. He is one of the founders of the Tau Zero Foundation and now serves as its lead journalist. This organization grew out of work begun in NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics program, and now seeks philanthropic funding to support research into advanced propulsion concepts for interstellar missions. Gilster is the author of seven books, including Digital Literacy (John Wiley & Sons, 1997) and Centauri Dreams: Imagining and Planning for Interstellar Flight (Copernicus, 2004), a study of the technologies that may one day make it possible to send a probe to the nearest star. He tracks ongoing developments in interstellar research from propulsion to exoplanet studies on his Centauri Dreams Web site (www.centauri-dreams.org). In past years, Gilster has contributed to numerous technology and business magazines, and has published essays, feature stories, reviews and fiction in a wide range of publications both in and out of the space and technology arena. In addition, he has for the last twenty-three years written a regular column on computers, which appears in The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC). Gilster is a graduate of Grinnell College (IA); he did six years of graduate work at UNC-Chapel Hill, specializing in medieval English literature, before going into commercial aviation and, eventually, writing.