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The time has come for my annual short pre-Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

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Another mountain view from Curiosity

Low resolution panorama
Click for full resolution panorama. The original images can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I hope my readers won’t get tired of seeing these mountain views from Curiosity, but I can’t get enough of them.

The image above is a panorama I’ve created from six photos taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera yesterday. The box marks the location of that spectacular outcrop I highlighted in the previous mountain view five days ago. The red dotted line shows the rover’s upcoming planned route. The white cross indicates the pavement bedrock where the science team hopes to next drill.

For scale, Navarro Mountain is rises about 400 feet from where the rover presently sits. The peak of Mount Sharp is actually not visible, blocked by its near white flank on the panorama’s left edge. That peak is still 13,000 feet higher up from where the rover presently sits.

The rise of rocks next to the words “entering Gediz Vallis” is actually only probably five to ten feet high, as it is very close to the rover.

Curiosity’s travels continue to get more and more exciting to follow.

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

5 comments

  • Andi

    The terrain (Marsrain?) is getting more and more interesting – love the mountain views!

    Can’t wait for a panorama from the summit of Mount Sharp!

  • How tall are these mountains?
    I try to compare the features you highlight in your posts with Earth, just to help me relate to them. The differences between the planets are fascinating to me.

  • Jeff

    Thanks for the rover updates and cool images. One of my daily internet stops, (after BtB – of course) is the UMSF site. The folks there have constantly amazed me with their image skills and spacecraft knowledge of the many missions to Mars, the planets and beyond. One image wizard in particular, Jan Van Driel, posts almost daily panoramas using the navigation cameras from Curiosity. This is his latest, posted yesterday (8/27/20) from Sol 3219.

    http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8644&view=findpost&p=254277

    While the navcam shots are lower resolution and wider FOV, these panos give me such a feeling of “you are there”, standing next to rover and gazing out across the surface. Recently I had one of the panos on screen and while scrolling around, one of the grandsons came up and asked what I was looking at. After explaining where, how and why the Martian view was taken, he said, “That’s cool, grandpa”. I was tempted to launch into “if you study hard and do good in school, you might be able to got there one day” talk, but he ran out of the room to go pester his little brother. Again! hahaha

  • wayne

    Jose-
    Great question. distance and height would be good.

    (nicely done Supertramp tune!)

  • Jose: As I say in the post itself, Navarro is about 400 feet high, and Mt Sharp rises another 13,000 feet higher.

    The highlighted outcrop I estimate to be about 100 feet tall, give or take a bit. It sits about 100 feet away, and only looks smaller and farther away because of camera lens distortion.

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