Richard Jurek is an American space historian, author, and internationally recognized collector of space-flown artifacts. He is co-author of Marketing the Moon: The Selling of the Apollo Lunar Program (MIT Press) and author of The Ultimate Engineer: The Remarkable Life of NASA's Visionary Leader George M. Low. Over many decades, Jurek has assembled a distinguished collection of astronaut-flown personal mementos from the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs. In particular, he has curated one of the world's largest collections of rare and unique space-flown numismatic items. His space-flown $2 bill collection - branded as "The Jefferson Space Museum Collection" - has been profiled in many publications and was featured in the award winning The Two Dollar Bill Documentary. His collection has been publicly exhibited and featured in broadcast and print media, and he has contributed articles to Air & Space Smithsonian and served as a consulting producer on the PBS documentary Chasing the Moon. Most recently, he co-hosted a limited-series podcast Two Space Collectors Collecting Space with fellow collector Jason Rubin.
