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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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Falcon 9 still go for launch on Saturday

Reports indicate that Wednesday’s Falcon 9 prelaunch static fire test was a success and that all systems are go for a September 2:14 am launch of Dragon to ISS.

If this launch happens has planned, it will occur only 13 days after the previous Falcon 9 launch in Florida, the shortest turnaround by SpaceX yet.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

3 comments

  • geoffc

    Which poses several questions on how they did that… The article I believe notes they already had the core for CRS-4 at the Cape. We know they need X days to drive first stage from Hawthorne to McGregor. Y days to test in McGregor. Z days to drive it to CCAFS. Then how much time is needed to prep it at the Cape? (A days).

    So X + Y + Z +A is the bare minimum. Be interesting to see values on those variables.

    Where did they store it at the Cape, while delayed on AsiaSat-6? I was under the impression there was only room for one core in the current LC-40 hangar.

    They have access to the SPIF (http://space.stackexchange.com/questions/3288/what-is-the-alternate-hangar-spacex-has-available-at-the-cape) which is not really big enough for a F9 first stage. (maybe in the SMAB part? But I have seen nothing suggesting they have access to that. It was where the SRB’s were partially assembled so must have had enough room).

  • fred k

    They might have simply parked the truck outside and waited for AsiaSat-6 to leave the hanger. The booster must be protected from weather while its on the truck.

  • geoffc

    Good point. You know, when they drive across the country from texas to Florida, I wonder what truck stop they stop at. That would be a cool truck to leave overnight…

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