University Libraries Promotion and Tenure Recognition

This book was written by friends and colleagues from my first job after I finished my master's degree. In particular, the lead author, Dr. Val Chobotov, was a very influential person on my career, and a good friend who is no longer with us. Some of my earliest papers were influenced by his work in orbital debris, and I even had the great opportunity to work directly for him for over five years. I will be forever grateful for the guidance Val gave me early in my career, his support in helping me go back to graduate school to get my Ph.D. and his support in helping me become a professor at Penn State. His mentorship continued until he passed away in 2010.

The rest of the authors also guided my early career, and they all have made significant contributions to the United States through their work on the U.S. military space program. Thanks to Hans for making me a better writer, George for teaching me about orbital perturbations, Jimmy for making me a better computer programmer, Tom for teaching me about Earth-orbit mission design, and Jean for getting me started researching low-thrust trajectory optimization (which later became the subject of my Ph.D. dissertation).