Les Johnson is a physicist and the author of The Spacetime War; Mission to Methone; Rescue Mode (coauthored with Ben Bova); and Saving Proxima (coauthored with Travis S. Taylor). He is also the coeditor of the science/science fiction anthologies Going Interstellar and Stellaris: People of the Stars. He was technical consultant for the movies Europa Report and Lost in Space and has appeared in numerous documentaries on the Discovery and Science channels. Johnson was also the featured Interstellar Explorer in National Geographic Magazine and interviewed for Science Friday. By day, he serves as solar sail principal investigator of NASA's first interplanetary solar sail missions and leads research on various other advanced space propulsion technologies at the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.