Robert L. Forward is a consulting scientist, future technologist, lecturer, and science fact and fiction writer. He is the owner and Chief Scientist of Forward Unlimited, a consultant firm specializing in exotic physics and advanced space propulsion, and a partner and chief scientist of Tethers Unlimited, a partnership formed in 1994 with Dr. Robert P. Hoyt, specializing in highly survivable space tethers. He is the author of ten science fiction novels, the sequel to Dragon's Egg, and three works of science fact plus numerous popular science articles and short stories.