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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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Ingenuity completes 15th flight

Ingenuity landing on November 6th
Click for full image.

No details have been released, but based on the latest raw images downloaded from the Mars rover Perseverance today, the helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its 15th flight in Jezero Crater yesterday.

The image to the right is the last of five released this morning, showing the helicopter’s shadow on the ground, just before Ingenuity touched down. Note how the shadow of Ingenuity’s four legs appear oriented level relative to the ground. While the first of the five images shows the shadow tilted, as if the helicopter is making a last turn, the last four photos all show the legs oriented properly.

We will have to wait now for official confirmation.

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

7 comments

  • Ray Van Dune

    Thanks for the picture! To my eye, the legs toward the bottom of the picture appear to be foreshortened, and the shadow of the rectangular solar array above the rotors appears to be shifted toward the bottom of the image, relative to the square main body. These shifts would indicate that the little helicopter is not level, but is tilted towards the bottom of the image.

  • Ray Van Dune: Thank you for the analysis. I wonder however if the tilt you see is a consequence of the fisheye nature of the camera lens.

    I also think, assuming you are right, that this tilt is well within the helicopter’s margins, and it would have landed smoothly regardless.

  • Ray Van Dune: Also, you should look at all the images, in sequence. The leg shadows are very steady from picture to picture, also indicating the helicopter is landing under control.

  • Ray Van Dune

    I forgot to account for the angle of the Sun from the vertical, both from local time of day and season. So I don’t think I can make any deduction about the helicopter’s orientation, only that the shadows are indeed foreshortened.

  • Jeff

    Just posted on UMSF is a 30 frame GIF of the landing. In upper right corner of frame you can see one of the landing legs.

    http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=49681

  • How cool is it that flights on Mars are becoming routine!

  • Pat Woods

    Cool pic but I have a question. As an amateur radio operator (N3AAS) will the Martian atmosphere support radio communications?

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