For fans of the U.S. space program, the next few years will be as much about looking at the past as gazing ahead to the future. With last year’s 50th anniversary of Alan Shepard’s flight marking him as the first American in space, and next month’s 50th anniversary of John Glenn’s first American orbital flight, the half-century anniversaries are going to tick by fairly quickly, culminating in 2019 with the big kahuna itself: the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing. I don’t personally remember the event, being the tender age of one year old at the time, but as the ultimate expression of American “can-do” spirit, the golden anniversary should get some high recognition.
One person who does remember that achievement well is Richard Garriott. For those who are about my age, he may be known more commonly by his alter ego “Lord British,” the driving force behind the wildly successful Ultima series of computer swords and sorcery roleplaying games. While I remember playing one of the versions many times on a friend’s Apple computer in junior high school, I must admit that I didn’t know that Lord British was a real living, breathing person until recently, when I watched a screening copy of a newly released independent documentary titled Man on a Mission.
A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined AIN in 2007, Curt came to the publication from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to AIN sister publication Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.
