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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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Florida approves expansion of spaceport territories

Map of potential Florida spaceports

The Florida legislature has now approved two new locations in Florida where rocket launches can take place.

Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill that, as of Monday, will add South Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and the panhandle’s Tyndall Air Force Base to Florida’s growing spaceport territories.

The map to the right shows the spaceport locations within Florida. While the state government might now allow launches from these locations, it is unclear if either military facility is entertaining the idea.

Regardless, the Florida government is clearly intent on encouraging and attracting this new industry to its state.

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

5 comments

  • pzatchok

    By letting rocket launches from those two bases it gives the federal government another reason to keep them open, just in case they were on a future list of bases to close.

  • Mark Sizer

    I was stationed at Tyndall. I can’t imagine where they’d put the launch pads. The base is somewhat rectangular, split in half the long way by a highway. The beach side is housing. The land side is the airplane stuff (runways, hangers, etc…).

    Wildly unrelated: I asked to be assigned to Japan or Germany. Apparently, they split the difference. I loved the beach there. It was a great place to be stationed.

  • Concerned

    It would seem Tyndall could only host higher inclination launches, at least in the near term.
    Maybe after Starship/Super Heavy gets reliable enough, they can entertain the idea of overflying land. I guess if giant jetliners filled with hundreds of tons of fuel regularly fly over densely populated cities, eventually SS can eventually do it also.

  • Jeff Wright

    To Mark,

    If Musk really wants frequent space launch—he needs to launch from Mobile Alabama where we have stainless steel plants and a river.

    The LVs can follow the Florida peninsula on the Gulf side with less chop.

  • Andi

    So they’d have to launch to the SE then. Is that practical?

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