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Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short pre-Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

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Transient

An evening pause: In celebration of the first monsoon rain this past Saturday here in Tucson.

Hat tip Willi Kusche.

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

5 comments

  • wayne

    Occasionally get extremely well defined lightning storms coming in off Lake Michigan, but have not seen one like the video, in quite a while.

    Lots-o-rain, thunder, and lightning, the past 10 days in Michigan. Had a very late Spring, then it went straight to the 90’s. We are in peak Tornado Season, colliding Low & High pressure zones, tend to concern us. (On the upside, the Tornado count this season is only 50% of the historic average.)

    >Northern Wisconsin & the Upper Peninsula were hammered over the weekend. Michigan Tech (in Houghton, Michigan,) is temporarily closed.
    “Flash Flooding, Michigan’s Upper Peninsula”
    June 17th, 2018
    https://youtu.be/zqsbwoD0izU
    0:45

    pivoting…
    Had an F-5 tornado wipe out a few towns 62 years ago-
    The West Michigan Tornadoes of April 3, 1956
    https://youtu.be/saUr-j93RKQ
    21:25

  • John M. Egan

    As a meteorologist, this is a true delight!

  • ted

    Visually excellent, but the stupid sound effects could have been left out. Seeing lightning miles away and hearing a crack at the same time?

    It reminds me of combat footage where a bomb explodes in the distance and somebody has added an explosion sound so they occur simultaneously.

    It cheapens the show.

  • wayne

    ted-
    completely agree on fake sound fx’s. (especially with historical films)

    For this one, it’s more “art” than a documentary (as it were), but agree the delay is an integral part of the experience, it’s a feature of reality, not a bug.

  • Enjoy watching thunderstorms from a safe distance (miles), but after twenty years in the South and some way-too-close-for-comfort-strikes, just as happy to live in place where lightning storms are uncommon.

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