January 10, 2025 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast
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
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
Robert,
About the Mars Sample Return mission you said, “The whole program is a mess. ,,, This whole program was badly designed from the beginning and is an example of NASA at its worst.”
Hardly surprising, as Perseverance was conceived and funded during the Obama administration. Obama had set NASA adrift, providing little leadership and leaving everyone confused. MSR was no different, in that the collection rover was well designed, but it was not designed to interface with any collection mission. Samples are arbitrarily scattered around the terrain with only a dream of picking them up, but no real idea of how to realistically collect them.
Designing and funding it as one mission in three parts could assure that the first part, the Perseverance collection mission, was compatible with the second part, the retrieval mission, and that this second part was compatible with the third part, the return to Earth. It was not coordinated and now the costs and schedule reflect the chaotic organization of the whole mission.
SLS was done just as chaotically and with a “Field of Dreams” philosophy: if they make it, customers will come. They made it, but not with customers in mind, not made in as way that customers would want to use it. Once again, NASA had been set adrift.