Walter Hammond is a seasoned aerospace engineer with over four decades of experience in the aerospace and defense sectors. Combining technical expertise with a passion for storytelling, Hammond brings a unique insider’s perspective to the history of rocketry and space exploration. His professional background, research rigor, and engaging prose style make him uniquely qualified to tell fascinating stories that engage his readership.​

Walter Edward Hammond was born in Austin, Texas in 1947, the third child of John and Carmela Hammond. In 1950 the family moved to Fort Worth, Texas where his father became the head of the Foreign Language Department at TCU. In the 1950s and 1960s the family spent most summers traveling in Mexico, visiting Carmela’s extensive family, or in Monterrey where John taught Spanish at the Tecnológico de Monterrey. ​

​Brought up as a devout Catholic, Walter attended St. Andrew parochial school in Fort Worth. He went to St. Anthony Junior Seminary in San Antonio as a high school freshman, then Nolan Catholic High School in Fort Worth. He enrolled in the University of Texas at Arlington, graduating with a B.S. In Aerospace Engineering in 1971. In 1968 he met Suzanne Scott Adams in Madrid Spain when both were on a Spanish student summer tour. He and Suzanne married in August of 1971. While getting an M.S. Degree in Aerospace Engineering at the Univerity of Texas in Austin, Walter joined the Air Force and completed Navigator and Electronic Warfare schools in Sacramento, California. He flew in B-52s as an Electonic Warfare Officer from 1973-1976.​

​In 1976 Walter left Air Force active duty and began his professional engineering career with North Amercan Aviation Rocketdyne in Canoga Park, California. From 1976-1979 Walter also flew as a C-130 Navigator for the California Air National Guard. In 1979 the family moved to College Station, Texas where Walter attended Texas A&M University and obtained three more degrees: Master of Business Administration, Master of Industrial Engineering, and Doctor of Engineering in Industrial and Systems Engineering. In 1983 the family moved to Huntsville, Alabama where, as part of the Doctor’s degree, Walter completed a one-year internship at Teledyne Brown Engineering with a dissertation on President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative.​

​Walter and his growing family lived in Huntsville for 33 years (1983-2016), except for stints in Sacramento (1986-1987) where he served as branch manager for a Low Cost Access to Low Earth Orbit group at the short-lived Aerojet Propulsion Research Institute; Wheeling, West Virginia (1996) as manager of Commercial Projects for NASA’s Technology Transfer Center at Wheeling Jesuit University; and Lexington, Kentucky (2009-2010) as Senior Consulting Systems Engineer for USMC PEO Land Systems. In Huntville Walter worked in the Aerospace and Defense Industry for the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, the Missile Defense Agency, and a broad gamut of large to medium size companies—Boeing, Northrop Grumman, SAIC, Jacobs Engineering, Booz, Allen and Hamilton, and many others. He also served in the Air Force Reserve (1980-2002), retiring as a Lieutenant Colonel.​

​While at NASA Walter wrote his first two books for the AIAA Education Series–Space Transportation: A Systems Approach to Analysis and Design (1999) and Design Methodologies for Space Transportation Systems (2001). He spent 10 years (2007-2017) writing the Beyond the Saga of Rocket Science Series. Walter is the Lead Editor working with group of experts to finish a 25-chapter textbook: Systems Thinking, Engineering, and Analysis by Wolter J. Fabrycky (deceased 2024).​

​The Hammonds have four children: Scott Anthony, Anne Elizabeth, David John, and Michael Charles. They moved to Orlando, Florida in 2016, where they enjoy watching five grandchildren grow up. Walter has to occasionally leave Florida to pursue his hobby of high-altitude mountain climbing.​