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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.

 

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SpaceX successfully launches a previously flown first stage

3:36 pm

The competition heats up: SpaceX has successfully launched a commercial satellite using a previously flown first stage.

Even more important, they landed that first stage on a barge, and can even consider using it again!

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

10 comments

10 comments

  • jburn
    March 30, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    Wow! Incredible….

  • Des
    March 30, 2017 at 3:44 pm

    Fantastic job by the great team at Spacex. They have proven all the many doubters wrong.

  • Robert Pratt
    March 30, 2017 at 4:04 pm

    Capitalism in Space baby!!!!

  • Alex
    March 30, 2017 at 10:39 pm

    Please, no repainted first stage next time.

  • pzatchok
    March 30, 2017 at 11:02 pm

    This is a sad sad day for American Space.

    We have been reduced to using a USED first stage. We can not even afford new rockets anymore.

    I hope this doesn’t make the world news. This is SOO embarrassing. What will the other nations think of us?

    Just imagine all the good union jobs lost because we couldn’t use a new rocket. I think we need a law forcing everyone to use new rockets for all launches inside the US and make sure they use only union labor for all the work. In order to keep all those launch companies in the US we should offer them subsidies. Enough to make it worth their while to stay.
    It will save the US money, jobs and bring in more taxes.

    Or we could just loudly chant USA USA USA and say screw it to all the other jealous nations of the world.

  • Commodude
    March 31, 2017 at 4:41 am

    D.D. Harriman lives.

  • wayne
    March 31, 2017 at 6:34 am

    pzatchok–
    Good stuff.
    Just think of the children….if we could save just one, it would be all worth it…

    First World Problems
    https://youtu.be/vN2WzQzxuoA
    (1:56)

  • Gealon
    March 31, 2017 at 8:57 am

    Was tense watching it last night when the video on the barge cut out. But the people erupting into cheers a few moments later told me everything was golden even before the feed came back. I wonder now if SpaceX will indeed start naming their boosters in the future.

  • ken anthony
    March 31, 2017 at 10:19 am

    I wonder if used rocket salesmen will wear cheap suits? …in the twilight zone!

  • Michael
    March 31, 2017 at 1:40 pm

    Commodude – agreed …. unfortunately so does Nehemiah Scudder

    pzatchok – great observation … thought occurs to me that we should tax all rockets that are reused because of the lost jobs

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