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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.

 

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Europe considers a helicopter drone for future Mars missions

The European Space Agency is considering flying a technology demonstration helicopter drone on a future Mars mission.

Note that they don’t yet have the money to build this, and it appears that they don’t yet have a mission to fly it on. What they have done is just completed a preliminary study, which suggests the idea is feasible. They are now lobbying for more cash to move forward.

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

3 comments

  • PeterF

    I wonder if they have considered a “lighter than air” craft? Hydrogen should be a good gas in the low oxygen martian air. A sort of hybrid? That way the craft wouldn’t be completely dependent on solar panels. It could have a tool that it drops, or a claw that could drop rocks (like a seagull) to find out whats inside without having to drill…

  • LocalFluff

    This is just monkies trying to look cool by imitating those who do the real thing. US Congress two weeks ago instructed NASA to add a Martian helicopter to the Mars 2020 rover, and increased the planetary science budget accordingly. Based on several years of successful development which is a real alternative. ESA hopes to simply skip that part and pretend to be in the same game:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3y7iJEe7uM

    @PeterF,
    Mars’ atmosphere at low altitudes is only 0.6%-1% of that on Earth’s surface. So whatever a hydrogen balloon can lift on Earth, divide that by at least 100. This is why landing on Mars is hard, parachutes only work at very high speeds. And hydrogen gas quickly escapes through thin lightweight balloon cloth. The plan now is to wait a day, or several, to Solar charge a battery in order to spend all that energy on a short vigorous propeller hop. Such a “helihopter” can take a bird’s view image of the rover’s surroundings to guide it and also study the ground where it lands. Landing, or even steering, a lighter-than-air vehicle seems harder.

  • Orion314

    I thought a U2 type long wing glider might be an idea for Barsoom.

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