Strike Force

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to Janet and Bryan Raydon and Linda and Richard Offerdahl for their generosity.

Thanks to astronaut Mike Mullane, author of Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut (New York: Scribner, 2006), and Thomas D. Jones, astronaut and author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to NASA (New York: Alpha, 2002) and Sky Walking: An Astronaut’s Memoir (New York: HarperCollins, 2006), for their help on understanding the wonders and dangers of space flight and for their thoughts and opinions on the military use of space.

Thanks to the organizers, sponsors, exhibitors, and presenters that I met at the 2006 International Symposium for Personal Spaceflight, held in Las Cruces, New Mexico, part of the X-Prize Cup weekend demonstrating and rewarding the newest advancements in private spaceflight technology. I especially wish to thank Patricia C. Hynes, Lowell Catlett, and Thomas Burton for their hospitality and help.

I would also like to thank Andy Turnage, executive director of the Association of Space Explorers, for his support, along with ASE members (all of whom had to make at least one orbit around the Earth) Jay C. Buckey Jr., Thomas Jones, and Dr. John-David F. Bartoe, with whom I was lucky enough to hang out with at the symposium and gain some “behind-the-scenes” insight on living and working in space.

Your comments are welcome! Visit www.AirBattleForce.com or e-mail me at readermail@airbattleforce.com. I may not have time to reply, but I read every e-mail.