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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.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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Blue Origin unveils first completed BE-4 rocket engine

The competition heats up: Blue Origin today unveiled to the public its first completed BE-4 rocket engine, being built for its New Glenn orbital rocket as well as ULA’s Vulcan rocket.

More important however was that the company expects the second and third engines to come off the assembly line very soon.

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

3 comments

  • LocalFluff

    Isn’t it a problem for Jeff Bezos that he is running total hate propaganda against the president in his WaPo? That the president has said that Bezos’ Amazon is an unhealthy monopoly that should be regulated. So, that same Jeff owns a company Blue Origin that is looking for monies from the president’s NASA and from the ULA who are dependent on not alienating the president.

    And Jeff Bezos bought WaPo in order to *improve* his political influence!? It shows how one bad idea can ruin all good ideas realized before it. I doubt BO will ever fly anything to orbit unless Jeff Bezos sells it all.

  • Tom Billings

    “Isn’t it a problem for Jeff Bezos that he is running total hate propaganda against the president in his WaPo?”

    The pissy attitude towards non-progressive politicians is why Bezos bought WaPo in the first place, and I think Trump realizes it. By 2011, it was obvious that the US politics, under Obama, was becoming like Chicago’s. In Chicago, any retailer who doesn’t want to be shut down regularly for “permit inspections” and other government interference in their operations will make regular contributions to the Cook County Democratic Party, and will put a sign in his window stating his adherence to the Party.

    Amazon, where Bezos gets his capital for Blue Origin from, is the planet’s largest retailer, and he needs it to *not* be treated to the sort of raids that shut down Gibson Guitar for much of Obama’s presidency. So, in 2011, he bought the broke WaPo, and kept it running even though it was losing money, as his sign in the window. It’s like owning a snippy snarling little dog for show, that has to be walked in public, though. If he believes that the Democrats might win the 2018 and 2020 elections, he will want to kept the snarling little beast as his sign that he was “faithful through all 4 horrid Trump years”.

    However, on the day of his first meeting with the rest of the Trump presidential advisory board for 2021, I would counsel all employable WaPo employees to have other jobs already lined up, or even be at other employment already, because the years of losing money will be an excellent excuse to finally put the nasty little beast down. He knows that Trump, despite his other faults, is *not* a Chicago pol, like Obama was. So, he’s got time to be sure of his footwork before he makes this move.

  • ken anthony

    The Raptor appears to be about six months ahead. These engines are going to be game changers.

    I don’t expect politics will affect the competition much.

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