2002 COMMUNICATOR AWARD RECIPIENT
Miles O'Brien
Miles O'Brien. Download hi res copy. Photo credit: NASA, 2008.
[Griffin Vosburg Group, 2002 RNASA Program Book, March 8, 2002]
Please see 2009 Program Book page 6 for updated biography of Miles O'Brien.
Miles O'Brien, news anchor and chief space correspondent for CNN News Group in Atlanta, covers all aspects of space flight, as well as automated scientific missions for CNN. Known in the industry for presenting balanced and accurate stories, he is an Emmy award-winning journalist who has played a crucial role in bringing the stories of today's space program to viewers around the world.
Mr. O'Brien launched his career in 1982 as an assignment editor at WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. For the next 10 years, he worked as a general assignment reporter and anchor for television stations in Boston, Massachusetts, Tampa, Florida, Albany, New York and St. Joseph, Missouri.
In 1992, Mr. O'Brien joined CNN as an anchor and correspondent for CNN's Science Unit. In this position, he produced various stories for air during CNN's daily programming, as well as wrote and hosted the weekly broadcast, CNN Science & Technology Week.
He has been at the forefront of such aerospace milestones as Senator John Glenn's return to space in 1998, where he shared the desk with Walter Cronkite, as well as the launch of the first multinational crew to live aboard the International Space Station in 2000. He recently completed a one-hour documentary that provides viewers with an unprecedented look inside the intricate, sometimes-perilous process of preparing the space shuttle for flight.
In addition to his on-camera duties, Mr. O'Brien writes a widely read Internet column on space issues called "Downlinks" for CNN.com. In October 2000, he spearheaded the effort to simultaneously video-stream a shuttle launch live to the Web, allowing participants in a CNN.com online chat room to pose questions to him and an astronaut during the countdown an ascent. An instrument-rated pilot with several hundred hours of flight time in a dozen types of aircraft, Mr. O'Brien earned his bachelor's degree in history from Georgetown University.