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The time has come for my annual short 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.

 

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Record-setting Falcon 9 1st stage booster lost after landing

The SpaceX Falcon 9 first stage booster that launched on December 23, 2023 for a record-setting nineteenth time was damaged beyond repair when, after landing on its drone ship successfully, experienced rough seas that caused it to fall over.

The picture at the link shows the crushed booster on its side on the drone ship. SpaceX noted the spectacular history of this booster in a separate tweet:

This one reusable rocket booster alone launched to orbit 2 astronauts and more than 860 satellites — totaling 260+ metric tons — in ~3.5 years.

In a sense, it actually put more mass into orbit that a Saturn 5 rocket, for significant less money though over a much longer period of time.

For SpaceX the loss of this booster is hardly a set back, because it has several other boosters with only a few less total launches in its fleet. Expect one to exceed twenty launches in the near future.

Hat tip to out stringer Jay as well as several readers.

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

  • John

    Oh boy, I bet SpaceX is going to be hit with the mother of all environmental fines for destroying mother ocean.

    “but other rocket companies dump their stages into the ocean every launch”.

    “Pay us”.

  • Edward

    NASASpaxceFlight has some good photos of the damage:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcgW7cOOoM8 (11 minutes)

    The second half of the video is a memorial to the booster. A memorial for a booster? I am a bit concerned that there is too much emotion for SpaceX hardware. It is not as though this was a booster that would have been slated to go to the Smithsonian or to anyone’s rocket garden. It may have the most flights so far, but no matter how many flights it was going to accomplish, it would most likely be quickly outshone by other boosters. Plural.

    This is newsworthy, yes, but not memorial-worthy.

  • Jeff Wright

    I’d like to see a cluster of Falcons as one bigstage—looking like Saturn I….in place of SuperHeavy

    It might keep slosh down.

  • Calvin Dodge

    Before Starship started to take shape, Elon said that making a 5-core Falcon Heavy wouldn’t be too hard, since the hard work had already been done for the current 3-core version.

  • Jay

    Five cores…45 Merlin-D engines, you are right they would have to call it the Falcon-9 Super Heavy. I bet it could put a mass just short of 100 tonnes into LEO. That would be a site.

  • pzatchok

    I wonder if they will salvage all they can out of the rocket?

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