Christopher Riley is a writer, broadcaster and film maker specialising in the history of science. He holds a doctorate from Imperial College and is a Visiting Professor of Science and Media at the University of Lincoln.
He has directed and produced on over one hundred programmes for the BBC - including their flagship science and technology strand 'Tomorrow's World' and the cult science show 'Rough Science'. He was the producer of the BBC's blockbuster drama documentary 'Space Odyssey - Voyage to the Planets', and conceived, produced and directed on the Sundance award winning feature documentary film 'In the Shadow of the Moon'. He was the producer of the restorated director's cut of NASA's original Apollo doc Moonwalk One, released on DVD for the 40th Anniversary of Apollo 11 in 2009.
He is the associate producer of BBC FOUR's documentary Destination Titan, and the producer and director of the unique Yuri Gagarin 50th Anniversary film project First Orbit; which collaborated with ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli to film a new view of what Yuri Gagarin would have seen on his pioneering orbit of the Earth in 1961. The film is available on DVD and BluRay from Amazon, subtitled into 30 languages.
During the summer of 2011 he produced a film with Kevin Fong for BBC TWO on the final flight of NASA's Space Shuttle. In 2012 he produced and directed a film about the Voyager missions for BBC FOUR, presented by Dallas Campbell. He is currently directing an authorised biopic of Neil Armstrong for the BBC & PBS Nova. It will air in December 2012.
Chris is the author of more than thirty articles and books on astronomy and planetary science and regularly lectures on this and other topics. His book for Haynes on Apollo 11 - 'an owner's workshop manual', was published in June 2009 and made it into Amazon's top ten science books of the year list. His follow up 'owner's workshop manual' on the Lunar Rover was published by Haynes in November 2012.
Chris wrote the chapter on Gagarin's visit to London in the 2011 British Council book 'Gagarin in Britain'. He is a contributing author to Faber and Faber's 2012 book 'Big Questions from Little People', and has co-authored a chapter in the 2012 book International Cooperation for the Development of Space, from the Aerospace Technology Working Group, a non-profit Space Policy and Program Innovation Center.
