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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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Irish startup lobbies for Irish spaceport

According to an official from the startup SUAS Aerospace, Ireland is an ideal location for the creation of a new spaceport.

Mr O’Halloran, who is now vice chairman of Irish space company SUAS Aerospace, said space vehicles could be launched from Ireland for telecommunications, environmental monitoring, or medical experiments.

…He later told the Irish Examiner: “There are loads of companies in Europe that need to have a facility of a launch pad, or a spaceport, and by and large they are all heading towards the Azores. The UK is now starting to set up spaceports, but they are now outside the EU. Ireland is ideal as a launching site.”

This Irish company’s focus, according to its website, is “…to build a leading European Space Port providing flexible commercial satellite launch facilities with provision for engine and rocket testing.” And it wants to do it in Ireland. O’Halloran’s speech was an effort to gin up both private and government support for the project, including a commitment of the Irish government to provide it the land it needs for such a site.

There are already three spaceports under development within the EU, in Spain, Norway, and Sweden, all of which at the moment are for suborbital rockets exclusively. Ireland’s location could make it a better choice for orbital launches, as it has many more options for flight paths over the Atlantic without crossing land.

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

2 comments

  • David Ross

    I imagine Portugal would also be good were it not in an earthquake zone. Maybe Galicia in Spain? Britanny in France? But all these options have the problem they’re facing westward where most satellites run west-to-east.
    Morocco has to be looking hard into the possibilities being closer the equator and, at the old Spanish Sahara which they conquered, now having a big desert to its east.

  • john hare

    David,
    That big desert to the east could be useful for Morocco. Recover first stages without a fleet or absolute pinpoint accuracy.

    Similar to thoughts on China and Russia.

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