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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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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Bridenstine to hold press event at SpaceX on Oct 10

NASA yesterday announced that its administrator Jim Bridenstine will hold a press event with Elon Musk at SpaceX headquarters this coming Thursday, October 10.

Also at this event will be the two astronauts who have been assigned to fly on the first demo mission of SpaceX’s manned Dragon capsule.

I am speculating, but I suspect that they will be announcing the launch schedule for both this manned mission as well the launch abort test that must precede it.

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

  • Scott M.

    Elon just tweeted that he’d reviewed the current plan and that the in-flight abort test should be ~10 weeks from now. So mid-December, if all goes well.

    Interestingly, that was in response to a tweet from Eric Berger of Ars Technica. Eric claimed to have an inside source that claimed NASA is in ‘full panic mode’ since Commercial Crew might not be flying in the first half of 2020.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Could be that the investigation into the April 20 D2 explosion is now complete and the official conclusions will be released, though that would probably be anti-climactic at this point. One hopes a reasonably precise forecast of dates for the in-flight abort test of Crew D2 and of the Demo-2 mission to ISS – including whether it will be a quick up-and-down or an extended mission – is also forthcoming.

    If the event was open to the public, I’d go as I live near the Hawthorne plant, but I see from the NASA press release that it’s going to be for accredited media only.

  • Dick Eagleson: At some point in the future I hope Behind the Black will become big enough that I could arrange to have you go as my accredited reporter.

    We have not reached that point yet unfortunately.

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