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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. 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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John Glenn has passed away at 95

R.I.P. John Glenn.

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

13 comments

  • Orion314

    Another of my childhood heros gone, loved him as an Astronaut, not so much as a politician ,
    RIP

  • wayne

    Orion314:
    Ditto on that thought.

    A very nice clip–
    John Glenn in Orbit
    Episode 5: Discovery Channel “Rocket Science”
    https://youtu.be/hsf3nCHhzkc
    (6:26)

  • Joe

    God spead, John Glenn!

  • Garry

    My understanding is that he was not well liked by his fellow astronauts, because he acted like a politician even then. He apparently was very well liked by Ted Williams (they flew missions together in Korea).

    In both cases I find myself not liking the personality, but greatly admiring their courage (for flying combat missions; I’m not one to call athletes heroes for what they do in sport). Imagine what kind of guts it took to be the first American to orbit the earth.

    God speed, indeed!

  • wayne

    Mark Levin is devoting his entire first segment to Glenn tonight.
    Very compelling and detailed story, with a lot of factoids I never knew about.

  • wayne

    Levin is also talking to Alan Sheppard’s grandson!

  • Jim Jakoubek

    With the passing of John Glenn the Mercury 7 now belong to history.

    God speed to them. Brave men all.

  • Chris R

    Love or hate, like or dislike the politics or personality – an incredibly important figure in our great nation’s history.

    Besides – it was important to play politicks in NASA if you want to be the first at anything.

  • There’s a time for everyone, but still a loss to see another aerospace pioneer cleared for final approach.

    To Chris R:

    Part of the reason Armstrong was picked to be first on the Moon was his humility and perceived lack of ‘political’ ambition.

  • Gealon

    2016 continues it’s rampage, even in it’s waning hours. This year can’t be over fast enough.

  • LocalFluff

    President-elect lauds John Glenn three+ minutes into his last Thank You campaign speech in Des Moines. “… continue to push new frontiers in science, technology and space.” And applause! He reads it off the teleprompter and stumbles on the word “spacecraft”, then as he usually does when his tongue stumbles, he disguises it by immediately letting himself be interrupted by the audience somehow. It doesn’t seem as if his heart is into this, but at least he reads and says that human space flight is great. And these transition days are good for him to be reminded about space.

    If he wants to untie old knots of irrational political correctness, nuclear power and nuclear propulsion in space would be a big one for the science community which seems to be 90% anti-Trump today, judging from those who dare utter a public opinion on the topic. People don’t even contemplate nuclear space because it is assumed to be a waste of time for irrational political reasons. Maybe Trump revolution will break that taboo and unleash a great space boom simply by allowing the rational technology to be used. This is how a non-PC president easily can solve many societal problems, and it seems to me be what Trump intends to do. Nuclear space yes or no should be a very easy question for him to answer the right way.

  • Insomnius

    We lose another one of
    Humanity’s Pioneers.
    Let’s hope we don’t lose them all.

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