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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


California’s first cubesat to be named after Jerry Brown

O boy! This week California’s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom announced that not only will he go forward with building a climate cubesat but he want to name it after the previous Democratic governor, Jerry Brown.

Newsom said Tuesday that he intended to honor his predecessor by attaching his name to a satellite that would gather information on climate change, one of Brown’s overriding interests during his second stint as governor from 2011-19.

While Newsom didn’t set a date for the launch, he said it is just a start for the state’s venture into outer space. “This is one of many we’ll launch,” Newsom said during a speech Tuesday at a San Francisco conference on technology and climate change, sponsored by Planet, a local company that provides satellite imaging. “We’ll collect real-time data” on things like fires, land use, carbon concentrations and other information connected to environmental health, the governor said.

I’m so glad California has the money for this, rather than schools or roads or brush-clearing to prevent wildfires or any number of silly things that are the fundamental responsibility of state governments. It shows their priorities are focused, that they know that only thing that matters is climate change (and honoring Democratic politicians), rather than providing basic services to their citizens.

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11 comments

  • Michael

    The other day I was watching an episode of “How The Universe Works”. The subject was the characteristics and search for the so-called “Planet 9” which according to some would explain the existing structure of the solar system. It was an interesting program but in the end I found myself hoping they would never find it because its naming would quickly devolve into a politically correct firestorm.

  • Col Beausabre

    How about we name the planet Columbia ?

    “Jerry Brown” is an appropriate name for the smallsat as it is supposed to have a highly erratic, very strange orbit.

    It’s like the way we have had the US Navy’s ship naming traditions prostituted. Cesar Chavez may have been a great man, but I don’t recall he had anything to do with national defense, yet T-AKE 14 bears his name. What did John Murtha ever do to deserve LPD 26 being named in his honor? Gabrielle Giffords managed to stop a madman’s bullet, does that mean she gets LCS 10 named for her? The official Navy line is that DDG 80 is named for FDR >and< Eleanor. My dad served in WW2 and he considered her "morale raising" interference with the military to be a sad joke. As did all my uncles, every one which was in uniform. And my dad's elder sister, who served in Burma in the Army Nurse Corps. Every one thought she was a foolish busybody. At least CVN 71 was named for the Roosevelt who saw combat – Theodore.

    http://nation.time.com/2011/05/18/the-uss-cesar-chavez-the-navys-name-game-cont/

  • John

    A free state should shoot launch a ‘destroyer’ cube sat to take down Jerry Brown.

  • Andi

    Planet 9 already has a name: “Pluto”

  • M Puckett

    Naming it ‘Moonbeam’?

  • wayne

    Victor Davis Hanson –
    Insights from Mexifornia
    C-Span 2003 (excerpt)
    https://youtu.be/egn3kp2mI5w
    12:41

  • wayne

    California Governor’s Forum
    Ronald Reagan & Edmund “Pat” Brown
    11-3-1966
    C-Span3 (excerpt)
    https://youtu.be/442rW8QaRtA
    3:05

  • wayne

    back to the Topic—

    P.O.D. –
    “Satellite”
    2001
    https://youtu.be/02vSlktZE6M
    3:30

    “As I look up to the sky today
    Well I can see you looking down on me…”

  • Chris

    If for some reason this cube sat leaves earths orbit and crosses an advanced alien civilization we will be embarrassed. They may even come back to destroy us … or maybe just California

  • ELF

    Newscum says the satellite will be to observe weather and climate change .
    BET ME ! I’m sure it would NEVER be used as a spy satellite , NOOOO .
    In Riverside , CA. where I live , the damn city government already has ariel photos of my entire property .
    I can’t do ANYTHING in my own backyard , lawful or otherwise , without wondering what Sky Cam is
    looking at me .

  • Edward

    From the article: “Brown recalled that in 1978, during his second term as governor, he proposed that California launch its own communications satellite. … ‘They called me Gov. Moonbeam for that,’ Brown said. ‘I didn’t get that moniker for nothing.’

    He is right that he was called Governor Moonbeam for proposing an expensive and redundant communication satellite, when it would have been far less expensive to do as everyone else does and rent time, as needed, on commercial communication satellites. He got that moniker for idiocy. Brown has embraced the moniker, but it still means that he is an idiot.

    This is the same governor who brought to California The Train To Nowhere (high speed rail), going from Modesto (just north of a state prison) to Fresno (where there is a tavern).

    In this time of identity politics, California has its token idiot Governor. Multiple token idiot governors.

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