Ron Miller (born May 8, 1947 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.) is an illustrator and writer who lives and works in South Boston, Virginia. He now specializes in astronomical, astronautical and science fiction books for adults and young adults.
Miller was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He holds a BFA from Columbus, Ohio, College of Art and Design. He worked as a commercial artist and designer for six years, before taking a position as art director for the National Air and Space Museum's Albert Einstein Planetarium. He left there in 1977 to become a freelance illustrator and author; to date he has nearly sixty book titles to his credit, and his illustrations have appeared on hundreds of book jackets, book interiors and in magazines such as National Geographic, Reader's Digest, Scientific American, Smithsonian, Analog, Starlog, Air & Space, Astronomy, Sky & Telescope, Science et Vie, Newsweek, Natural History, Discover, GEO and others.
He designed a set of ten commemorative postage stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. One of the stamps in the Space Exploration series (1991), is credited with helping inspire the New Horizons mission to that planet. The Pluto stamp was attached to the spacecraft before launch. The stamp is now in the Guinness Book of World Records as having traveled further than any other postage stamp in history. He has been a production illustrator for motion pictures, notably Dune and an unproduced version of Total Recall; and he designed and co-wrote the computer-generated show ride film, Comet Impact! for SimEx. He has provided concept and special effects art for numerous other directors. Most recently he was a co-producer of the documentary film, "A Brush With the Future."
Miller has been on the faculty of the International Space University. He is a contributing editor for Air & Space/Smithsonian magazine; a member of the International Academy of Astronautics; a member of the History Committee of the American Astronautical Society; a Life Member, Fellow and past Trustee of the International Association of Astronomical Artists; an Honorary Member of the Sociétè Jules Verne (Paris); a past member of the North American Jules Verne Society and a past Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society.
