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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.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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.

 

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.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

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Opportunity heads uphill after engineers finally pinpoint the origin of the rock that appeared out of nowhere.

Opportunity heads uphill after engineers finally pinpoint the origin of the rock that appeared out of nowhere.

They have now confirmed that the rock was kicked off a larger piece when Opportunity traveled over it.

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

10 comments

  • Naomi

    Hi Bob! It’s Naomi from the old days in Brooklyn! I heard you on Coast to Coast on Jan. 29th. Was VERY SURPRIZED! Would like to open a correspondence with you.

  • Naomi

    Please e-mail me back.

  • Cotour

    Attention NASA nerds, I still do not know what this item attached to the ISS is.

    http://youtu.be/8kXBgT-4wjY

    Comments? Reasonable interpretation / explanation? Anyone?

  • Pzatchok

    Is NASA serious?

    Did they actually stop the rover to investigate a pebble?
    On a planet of rocks they stopped to investigate a pebble that might have rolled down hill as they passed by.

    No wonder nothing ever gets done on time.

  • Cotour

    Attention NASA nerds, I still do not know what this item attached to the ISS is.

    http://youtu.be/8kXBgT-4wjY

    Comments? Reasonable interpretation / explanation? Anyone?

  • joe

    Definite delta wing shape, it flies in an atmosphere, not alien.

  • Cotour

    Why would, what I would assume be a top secret something, be hanging around the ISS? There are cameras accessible by the public all over it. And why is it not being commented on or explained by NASA? I have never seen a shape like that on anything being developed, it is unlike anything that I am aware of and it does not reflect standard / established design layouts. Our space stuff is based in basic shapes with some complex curves, this appears to be more organic in design.

    I think that we can all agree that there is something there, there. What is it, who made it and what purpose does it serve?

    I have to assume that this site has a very high percentage of NASA either employees, ex employees or just plain space nerds and an answer should be forth coming. But I can find no relevant comment.

  • joe

    Cotour, how do you know that the video is authentic, to me this looks like a space plane, if it is top secret, its possible no one not in the know would have seen such a vehicle, to me it has a delta wing shape not unlike other such concepts I have seen, and finally the resolution of this object is rather low, unlike other parts of the space station that are in higher resolution.

  • Cotour

    I agree that it could be a hoax, it is very possible given today’s level of technology, but its a pretty good one if it is.

  • Edward

    Of course NASA is serious. Examining the rocks, pebbles, and soil is why we put Curiosity on Mars in the first place. This was an opportunity to examine the underside, the unexposed side, of a rock. After all the expense and effort of getting instruments there, would you really pass up that science?

    Although it can collect soil samples and the powder of holes drilled into rocks, the arm with the APXS and the MAHLI is not intended to turn over rocks for investigation.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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