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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.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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.

 

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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December 4, 2022 Quick space links

These links are courtesy of myself, as it is Sunday and want to provide them quickly so I can do other things.

 

 

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

  • Darwin Teague

    Check out this article decrying this “Huge” new satellites that is now one of the brightest objects in the sky, destroying astronomy.

    It is 693 square feet, a fraction of the size of the ISS’s solar array.

    Talk about hyperbolic headlines!

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/ake8m4/a-huge-satellite-is-officially-one-of-the-brightest-objects-in-the-sky-astronomers-warn

  • Jeff Wright

    That’s Blue Walker…think a Lower orbit version of the Orbital Antenna Farm.

    It (they) will allow your cell phone to be a satellite phone. No 500$ Starlink terminal. Big terminal means smaller sats…smaller means you have bigger sats.

  • Gary

    I track satellites regularly using the Heavens-above.com site. I’ve found it quite reliable regarding locations, tracks, times and magnitudes. Blue Walker’s magnitude is never listed as brighter than 3.0 and frequently in the 4s and 5s. The reports in the above link are not in line with observations from the satellite site. Another issue is that satellites are not stationary. They move quickly – depending on time and position above horizon, anywhere from seconds to 5 minutes of visibility. I find it hard to believe they are that disruptive of astrophotography.

    https://heavens-above.com/PassSummary.aspx?satid=53807&lat=33.9562&lng=-83.988&loc=Lawrenceville&alt=0&tz=EST

    And finally, as Bob has said numerous times, get rid of the issue entirely with space based telescopes.

  • Lee S

    @Gary… I think it’s wrong to disregard the threat to ground based astronomy from huge satellite constellations, even if this particular one has been over hyperboled. Once they are up, they are up.

    Ground based telescopes, especially given adaptive optics, will be the “go to” in astronomy for many years to come. Have you had a look at the bills for Hubble and the James Webb? For most purposes, big mirrors on the ground are here stay for now.

  • Gary

    Lee, you have a good point IF we base our costs for space based telescopes on the economics of being put up by government space programs. If we use SpaceX and other suppliers as the basis for costs, that should make the economics much more favorable.

    For reference, this:

    https://behindtheblack.com/?s=celestron

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