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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.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five 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.

 

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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


April 28, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • Phantom signs deal with proposed spaceport in Australia
  • The spaceport, Arnhem Space Centre (ASC), is being developed by Equatorial Launch Australia (ELA), and hopes to attract international rocket companies. Phantom meanwhile hopes to complete its first launch first quarter of 2024.

 

 

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

2 comments

  • Jeff Wright

    Here is a nice link of lander effects upon regolith
    https://phys.org/news/2023-04-planet-safely.html

    The white paper
    https://pubs.aip.org/aip/pof/article/35/4/043331/2885299/Full-continuum-approach-for-simulating-plume

    Some thoughts from the paper–though developed for thin or non-existent atmospheres:

    “As mentioned earlier, although the investigated geometry is axisymmetric, some non-axisymmetric features can be observed on the dusty beds. This counterintuitive feature was observed in our preliminary studies….The NSF solution under-predicts the location of the reflected shock [consequently, the standoff shock (SS) position].”

    These might be the gays to ask about what happened here:
    https://phys.org/news/2023-04-giant-spacex-rocket-crater-texas.html

  • Richard M

    This may count as the *strangest* NASA story I have seen in a long time, and may deserve at least inclusion in the next Quick Space Links: Ashlee Vance’s new forthcoming book (When the Heavens Went on Sale: The Misfits and Geniuses Racing to Put Space Within Reach) relates an amazing anecdote about the time the FBI tried to figure out if Obama and Elon Musk, among others, were trying to destroy the US space program via NASA.

    Still, things escalated quickly and dramatically from that point. A group of Ames employees handed Congress a fifty-five-page report that, according to Worden, suggested the existence of a far-reaching conspiracy to destroy the US space program. Not only were Worden and his buddies allegedly involved in the conspiracy, but so, too, were President Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and Lori Garver, the deputy administrator of NASA, who had been a major advocate of SpaceX and private space exploration. Fueled by the document, the FBI kicked off an investigation that ended up taking four years and dragged Ames through the press as a bastion of spies.

    Lori Garver responded directly to this revelation with a tweet a few hours ago: “I wrote in my own book about the orchestrated attempt to paint me, @elonmusk, @POTUS44 & others as trying to destroy the US space program. Attacks on us came from such a wide range of directions I’d forgotten the Ames paper! FBI should have investigated those making the charges!”

    https://twitter.com/ashleevance/status/1652815580406386688

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