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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


February 28, 2025 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

Readers!

  

My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.

 

As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!

 

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4 comments

  • “February 22, 2025 Quick space links”

    Published 28 February

    Were you traveling 88 mph?

  • Blair: It’s called old age. Fixed and thanks.

  • Chris

    A question: Why are the sections of the Commercial Crew Program Directive blacked/redacted out?

    Is any of this classified?
    Are there trade secrets being revealed?

  • Edward

    Chris asked: “Why are the sections of the Commercial Crew Program Directive blacked/redacted out?

    This is a good question. The largest redactions occur in the rationale (reasoning) section and the decision section. This limits our knowledge of what they decided and why they decided it.

    Is any of this classified?

    It does not look like classified information, but then that is the point of redacting classified stuff. It is possible that there are International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) issues, which would be considered national security issues, but there is not enough context to be able to say that there is any classified material in this document.

    Are there trade secrets being revealed?

    Possibly, but the shortest redacted sections could reference the thruster failures. Since the reference to the helium leaks is not redacted, the leaks do not seem to be the reason for the redactions, but there are no references to the thruster problems, making me think that this topic is at least part of the redacted text. We already know that the thrusters had problems, so why they may have needed to redact that part is a mystery to me.

    What I noted in this document is that the Commercial Crew Program and the Program Control Board decided that putting the two astronauts in makeshift seats on Crew-8 Dragon was safer than returning them aboard the Crewed Flight Test Starliner. It also appears that they intended for the two astronauts to be unsuited, should they have needed the Crew-8 Dragon for an emergency evacuation of ISS after Starliner departed and before Crew-9 Dragon arrived. They must have thought that Starliner is very unsafe.

    On August 2, 2024, the NASA/SpaceX DMMT (MMT-24-048) approved the configuration to return up to seven crew members on the cargo pallet in Dragon in an unsuited manner. The risks associated with this configuration were reviewed and accepted by CCP at this DMMT.

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