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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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Jars of Clay – Worlds Apart

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Not specifically Christmas but the song fits the holiday.

Hat tip Dan Morris.

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

One comment

One comment

  • James Street
    December 23, 2022 at 11:04 am

    I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day – Casting Crowns
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK8xB1opuQ8

    From Wikipedia:
    “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” is a Christmas carol based on the 1863 poem “Christmas Bells” by American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The song tells of the narrator hearing Christmas bells during the American Civil War, but despairing that “hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, good will to men”. After much anguish and despondency the carol concludes with the bells ringing out with resolution that “God is not dead, nor doth He sleep” and that there will ultimately be “…peace on earth, good will to men”.

    Lyrics:
    I heard the bells on Christmas day
    Their old familiar carols play
    And mild and sweet their songs repeat
    Of peace on Earth, good will to men

    And the bells are ringing (peace on Earth)
    Like a choir they’re singing (peace on Earth)
    In my heart I hear them (peace on Earth)
    Peace on Earth, good will to men

    And in despair I bowed my head
    “There is no peace on Earth, ” I said
    For hate is strong and mocks the song
    Of peace on Earth, good will to men

    But the bells are ringing (peace on Earth)
    Like a choir singing (peace on Earth)
    Does anybody hear them? (Peace on Earth)
    Peace on Earth, good will to men

    Then rang the bells more loud and deep
    God is not dead, nor doth He sleep
    (Peace on Earth)
    (Peace on Earth)
    The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
    With peace on Earth, good will to men

    Then ringing, singing on its way
    The world revolved from night to day
    A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
    Of peace on Earth, good will to men
    And the bells, they’re ringing (peace on Earth)
    Like a choir they’re singing (peace on Earth)

    And with our hearts, we’ll hear them (peace on Earth)
    Peace on Earth, good will to men

    Do you hear the bells, they’re ringing? (Peace on Earth)
    The light, the angels singing (peace on Earth)
    Open up your heart and hear them (peace on Earth)
    Peace on Earth, good will to men

    Peace on Earth
    Peace on Earth
    Peace on Earth, good will to men

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