Christopher Riley is a British writer, broadcaster and film maker specialising in science and history of science. 

For his recent film project First Orbit - watched over 3.6 million times on YouTube - Chris collaborated with 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 premiered around the world on over 1600 screens in more than 130 countires and has now been translated into over 30 languages. It is available on DVD and Bluray from www.firstorbit.org

Chris holds a doctorate from Imperial College, University of London and is 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. Last summer he produced Kevin Fong's acclaimed film on the final flight of the Shuttle - for BBC TWO, and has just started production on a new film with Dallas Campbell about the Voyager missions for BBC FOUR.

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 last book - Haynes new 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 sequel title to this best seller, on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, is out this autumn.