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The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. 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.

 

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Final close-out of all science research at Arecibo

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is proceeding with the final close-out of all science research at the now shuttered Arecibo radio telescope, ending all funding for the remaining science instruments that still function and letting go all scientists on staff as of August 14th.

In October 2022, NSF announced it would not rebuild the giant telescope, saying it was following community recommendations for the best use of scarce research dollars. It is now shutting down most of the smaller instruments as well. As scientists depart, “all the expertise associated with instruments is leaving,” Brisset says. Olga Figueroa-Miranda, director of the observatory, says people from UCF, Puerto Rico’s Metropolitan University, and Yang Enterprises, an engineering firm, will be let go, including herself. She has yet to find a new position.

The NSF has budgeted money to turn the telescope’s visitor center into a science education facility, but this is not likely to be very successful, as there will be no scientists at this somewhat remote location, which will in itself discourage any traffic.

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

  • MDN

    Are they going to remove all the junk left over after the collapse, or are they just going to leave it a heaping pile to decay away slowly in the decades ahead like a Puerto Rican Titanic?

  • Jason Lewis

    So frustrating. How would a complete repair and upgrade cost compare to a single SLS launch? I visited the site several years ago and it would be a stupid place to have an educational facility. It’s remote and inconvenient even if you live on the island.

  • Col Beausabre

    Jason Lewis, Not frustrating at all, but smart. It’s obsolete. The future for observatories is in space, not on the ground. Better to invest in that than rebuild a monument to the past.

    MDN, sell it to a scrapper and recycle it

  • J Fincannon

    I look forward to videos of extreme athletes going there and doing skate boarding or mountain biking or even cross-country like running on the old derelict structure. Maybe they already have. This kind of thing Red Bull sponsors.

  • Jason Lewis

    Putting a radio telescope in space will have a different set of limitation compared to a scope on the ground. There are tradeoffs and it’s not a simple matter of one being obsolete. Data rates, storage, and real-time computational power in space will be severely limited compared so what can be done on the ground. The dish itself is fairly low tech and the cost for a new one is peanuts compared a typical space-based project. JWST was $10 billion. If radio astronomy is important, then both space and ground-based approaches make sense. Space doesn’t have the spectral limitations.

    Building an educational facility out there would be a waste of money. If they wanted one in Puerto Rico, then it would make much more sense to place it in or near a city.

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