Joseph N. Pelton - Space Systems and Sustainability : From Asteroids and Solar Storms to Pandemics and Climate Change

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This book has been a true challenge because of the diverse areas of concern when it comes to long-term human survival in the so-called Anthropocene epoch, which others call the Holocene epoch. We are in a geological time in which human activity is the prime shaper of change to planet Earth. This book thus needed to call upon a wide range of expertise to help readers understand the various crises that the modern world now faces.

I must first start with my thanks to my friend, colleague, and editor, Peter Marshall in England, with whom I have worked on nearly ten different book projects. I truly appreciate his help to format and improve the coherence of this text. I also wish to thank my friend and colleague Dr. Donald Daniel for his expertise in disarmament, nuclear weapons, and nuclear waste materials. He also helped me understand the particular problems with the monitoring of biological weapons. Likewise, my colleague and friend Prof. Scott Madry helped with understanding some of the latest breakthroughs in hyper-spectral sensing and data analytics that are zooming ahead at warp speed.

A special thank you must go to Prof. Ram S. Jakhu, Acting Director of the Institute of Air and Space Law, McGill University, and his colleague, Dr. Karin Vazhapully. They collaborated with me in the writing of Chap. , which addresses the creation of a global sustainability treaty. This new international agreement would facilitate the nations of the world to collaborate and identify the worlds greatest existential crises, and then to seek unified ways to mitigate these risks.

There are many others from around the world and in many different fields that have assisted in different ways. My sincere appreciation is extended to President Juan de Daumau, Gary Martin, Prof. Su-Yin Tan, and Prof. Chris Welch, all of the International Space University; Chris Johnson of the Secure World Foundation; Lord Martin Rees, Royal Astronomer of the UK; Matteo Madi of Sirin Orbital Sciences; Olga Sokolova, risk analyst from Zurich, Switzerland; Prof. Steven Freeland of Western Sydney University of Australia; Dr. James Green, Chief Scientist at NASA; Prof. Giovanni Fazio, Harvard University; Michael Potter, Paradigm Inc.; Prof. Madhu Thangavelu , Viterbi School of Engineering, University of Southern California; Ranjana Kaul, space lawyer from New Delhi, India; Dr. Carlos Niderstrasser; Dr. Darren McKnight of Centauri Corporation; Tommaso Sgobba, Executive Director of the IAASS; and Michelle Hanlon, co-founder of For All Moonkind.