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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. There are five 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.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.


Dragon freighter docks with ISS

ISS as of November 28, 2022

Capitalism in space: An unmanned Dragon freighter successfully docked with ISS yesterday, bring with it 7,700 pounds of cargo, including two new solar arrays for the station.

Two International Space Station Roll-Out Solar Arrays, or iROSAs, launched aboard SpaceX’s 22nd commercial resupply mission for the agency and were installed in 2021. These solar panels, which roll out using stored kinetic energy, expand the energy-production capabilities of the space station. The second set launching in the Dragon’s trunk once installed, will be a part of the overall plan to provide a 20% to 30% increase in power for space station research and operations.

These arrays, the second of three packages, will complete the upgrade of half the station’s power channels.

The graphic to the right shows the station as of today, with six different spacecraft docked to six different ports. No wonder there is a significant limit to the number of private missions that can fly to ISS. The needs of the station, as dictated by the international partnership of governments that run it, too often fill those ports.

This limitation will begin changing when Axiom launches its first module for ISS in about two years, followed soon thereafter by the launch of a number of other private independent stations by different American companies.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

8 comments

  • Steve White

    Apparently the ISS will be deorbited in ~2030 (https://www.nasa.gov/feature/faq-the-international-space-station-2022-transition-plan). Apparently it needs to be reboosted frequently due to atmospheric drag; it’s way too much mass to move to a significantly higher orbit, and if you did that anyway missions to the ISS would become much more expensive. Why would Axiom (or anyone else) design and launch a module for ISS when the station has a remaining lifespan of 7 years?

  • Steve White: You should do a search on this website for “Axiom.” Axiom’s module will be attached to ISS only temporarily. Their plan is to add to it until it can function independently, and then detach it to create their own independent station. ISS than can go the way of all buggy whips as private enterprise takes over.

  • pzatchok

    I would give it a final boost into a higher orbit and use it for parts.

  • Ray Van Dune

    Possible line of business evolution for SpaceX.
    For $100 million you get:
    (1) SSLS (Single Launch Space Station) based on Starship, with no heat shield or fins, but front air lock, solar cells and radiators allowing barbecue roll operation. Delivered to LEO. Minimal interior.
    (2) Dragon capsules
    (2) F9 boosters
    (4) F9 second stages, with options for more

    Knock yerself out!

  • Andi

    “Stored kinetic energy”? Unless that’s something mechanical like a spinning flywheel, wouldn’t that be “potential energy”?

  • Kyle

    Its kind of ironic that our ports are even backed up in space.

  • Ray Van Dune

    Interesting question, Andi. I have always heard of potential energy as being related to a position with respect to a gravitational field, but it could be with respect to a position, say of the free end of a coiled spring with respect to the end of the uncoiled spring. So you may be correct, if some form of a spring is the deployment mechanism.

  • Andi

    Hi Ray,

    The article linked to by the linked article reveals that “Instead of a rigid solar panel, ROSA was crafted from a composite carbon fiber containing an array of solar cells that can be deployed and retracted similar to a tape measure, using stored strain energy of the material.”

    So it is potential energy after all, stored in the spring tension of the “tape measure”

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