The "Russian Aerospace Guide" web site is a reference for Russian aerospace information for academic and amature researchers of Soviet/Russian space history.

The Russian Aerospace Guide also produces reference material in reports like the Russian Space Review 1996 for sale to the general public.

The "Russian Aerospace Guide" began as a newsletter for Russian space researchers loosely based on James Obergs old 'Cosmogram' letters. At the time, few researchers used email and snail mail dominated delivery initially.

Soon email poliferated to the general public and delivery by email became useful. After that, the Friends and Partners in Space listserv permitted easy distribution of research and the need for a newsletter decreased.

As public web access grew, the ability to provide an easy to access archive of old newsletters and Cosmonautics News columns from Quest magazine provided a mission for the "Russian Aerospace Guide" web site to be a resource of information about Russian space activities. Various articles and reference material was added, and that process continues.

Readers may not know that Russia, Russian military and the Russian Space Agency have no obligation to provide any information about the Russian space program, spacecraft, missions, cosmonauts or research to anybody (unlike the obligation NASA has to educate the public in its charter). This has resulted in a series of individuals from the 1950's to today who actively seek out material, research topics, and write their findings in a few key Russian, British and American journals and publications. This material dominates what is known of the Soviet/Russian space program, both in Russian and the rest of the world.

Writer and consultant Dennis Newkirk began dedicated research into the history of the Soviet space program in 1985 culminating with the publication of the Almanac of Soviet Manned Space Flight (1990, Gulf Publishing Co., Houston.). The book for the first time brought the official Soviet history together with western analysis of test flights and failures in a chronological format, from the flight of Gagarin to the Mir space station.

This was closely followed with the era of Glastnost and the fall of the USSR allowing a renewed view of once secret programs in articles, "Soviet Space Planes" (Spaceflight, Vol. 32, Oct. 1990), "Views of the N1/L3" (Quest, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1993), and in an interview with cosmonaut Georgi Grechko published as "A Pioneer of Space: Georgi Grechko's Story" (Quest, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1993), and many other articles. He has also acted as a consultant to Time/Life Books for the volume "How Things Work in Space" (1991, St. Remy Press, Montreal). As Cosmonautics Editor for Quest Magazine he has covered the STS-71, STS-74, STS-79, STS-81, and STS-86 launches, and Russian space programs in general.

He has lectured for various groups including the touring "Soviet Space" exhibit at the Boston Science Museum in 1990 and participated in panels at the 1995 Society for the History of Technology conference and the 1996 American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies conference.

His current projects included a history of the development of the FGB module for International Space Station co-authored with Asif Siddiqi, and a 1997/98 review of Russian space news. He also publishes the Russian Aerospace Guide web page including news and features on the Soviet/Russian space program (http://home.comcast.net/~rusaerog/).