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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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Air leak on ISS

An air leak on ISS was detected yesterday, and pinpointed to cracks found in the spherical habitation module of one of the Soyuz capsule’s docked to the station.

According to Russian sources, the problem was found in the Habitation Module of the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft, where the crew detected two small cracks, reaching 1.5 millimeters in size. Alexander Gerst apparently first discovered the leak.

The cosmonauts photographed the affected area and sent it to mission control for analysis. The first estimates indicated that the holes could be caused by meteor or debris strikes which punctured the hull of the spacecraft. Head of the Roskosmos State Corporation Dmitry Rogozin confirmed the incident but said that the problem had been resolved. According to Rogozin, the crew had to close off various sections of the station to isolate the leak.

According to ESA sources, the area of the leak was temporarily sealed with tape, while Russian cosmonauts were working on a permanent sealing patch. After some drop during the night, the air pressure inside the ISS was reported as stable near sea level. In the meantime, mission control informed the crew that all scheduled activities for August 30 had been cancelled.

The cracks do not pose a problem for using the Soyuz for returning to Earth, as the habitation module is discarded before de-orbit. The descent module appears unharmed.

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

3 comments

  • pzatchok

    I like how mission control decided to let them sleep since it was not a real problem.

    If a private company did that NASA would be all over them about it.

    And the temp fix was a piece of duct tape. The permanent fix will more than likely just be more tape.

  • pzatchok

    Only a fully trained astronaut could do that that. One with several degrees.

  • Localfluff

    A civilization cannot travel in space until it has invented duct tape.

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