TIM FURNISS wrote his first book in 1970, and has since written more than 30 titles. He covered the launches of Apollo 15 and several Shuttle missions from the Kennedy Space Center, and in 1988 was one of the first journalists to report on the launch of cosmonauts from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. In 1994, he joined the Space Shuttle crew of mission STS 62 during their training, including launch and landing simulations.