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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

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A one room fire at SpaceX

A fire broke out in a battery room at SpaceX’s California facility yesterday, injuring no one.

Though the article suggests the fire was not significant, it is also gives no details.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

  • Gealon

    Mmm, the absence of details is indeed a little annoying. Also, don’t get me wrong, I like what SpaceX is doing, but I feel this is once again a good time to point out that just because Lithium is the flashy new thing in battery technology, doesn’t make it the best. Given the lack of details I can’t say if this was an electrical fire or a battery fire. If they are indeed using lithium ion batteries at their plant, which I assume they would given SpaceX likes to deal only with the new and flashy, this fire was likely a battery fire and could have been very dangerous as lithium is highly flammable and the electrolyte used in Lion batteries is an oxidzer.

    Battery fires with older older/less energy dense technologies such as Nickel Iron, Lead Acid or even Litium Iron Phosphate are virtually unheard of, especially with LiFe batteries as they are designed for safety. Again, it’s all an assumption on my part as to what fire might have been given the lack of details, but I thought I’d take the opportunity to alert people to the safer battery chemistries out there. Just because Lithium Ion is one of the most energy dense, does not make it the best in all applications.

  • wayne

    Gealon–
    Thanks for the clarification on ‘batteries.’ –I have trouble keeping track of which versions are subject to “spontaneous combustion.”

    slight tangent–
    Are those solar-panels on top of the factory?
    (Musk is having trouble convincing his Board, to go forth with the takeover of his cousin’s solar-panel company.)

  • Edward

    I worked at a place that had a couple of electrical fires in the course of a month. The first was ground support cabling near the connectors at the spacecraft (fire did not reach the spacecraft); they had been mishandled, arced, and the insulation caught fire. Later, an electrical rack caught fire. That was a bad month, but we got the fires out using fire extinguishers only (and cutting power), no one was injured, and no hazardous materials response was required.

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