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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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Cake – Short Skirt, Long Jacket

<An eveing pause: I have to admit that I almost didn’t schedule this, since I don’t particularly like the song. However, that’s my taste, and besides, the trumpet player makes up for it.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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

6 comments

  • wayne

    Excellent suggestion Edward! Thanks.
    >Totally forget about these guys, they had 3-4 tunes that were pretty good, and in that same stylized lyrical-construction.

  • Cotour

    How about an 82 year old retired aerospace engineer / Navy pilot who fixed the Hubble space telescope singing really hard head banging rock. Does anyone here know this guy?

    https://youtu.be/BfR5O2PXzfc

  • wayne

    Cotour:
    HAR! Starts out great… but he can’t sing! (I can’t sing either, so not being critical.)
    If however, he’s doing an Andy Warhol-esque caricature of himself, as the 82 year old retired aerospace engineer doing Drowning Pool cover’s, then he’s definitely onto something!

  • Cotour

    He seemed appropriate to Behind The Black.

  • Calvin Dodge

    To me the best thing about this song is that it was used as the theme tune for “Chuck”. It also provided some of the inspiration for “Close, But No Cigar”. https://youtu.be/PtMU8nvZzOs

  • I like this song a lot, but the sound on the clip is terrible. Either that’s a horrible venue, or these guys benefit much from sound production: the song is much better on the album (and in airplay). To me the song evokes imagination. I’ve imagined the girl’s name is Cheryl: Karen doesn’t seem to quite cover it. Short skirt; long jacket.

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