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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:

 

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June 18, 2025 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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

8 comments

  • Patrick Underwood

    Well, there goes Orbital Reef. I predict Sierra will split off on ots own.

  • Jeff Wright

    Vast and Voyager and Gravitas are the only serious ones….my hope was Elon does rockets, Bezos does payloads.

  • Richard M

    Re: Starship 36 suddenly exploded during a static fire on the test stand at Massey’s.

    Man, 90 minutes later after the explosion, and things are still cooking off at Massey’s. The deluge system was clearly overwhelmed.

    Looks like some significant rebuild work is gonna be needed for that part of Massey’s.

  • Richard M

    Clarifying my last: I should clarify that the explosion occurred about 10-15 minutes before the actual static fire — during the last stage of prop loading.

    Loads of emergency vehicles on site now, still struggling to get the fire under control.

  • Steve Richter

    seriously, how confident is everyone that a refueled starship will never explode when its ignites its engines at the start of its travels from Earth orbit to Mars?

  • Richard M: I’m on it. A post is about to go up.

  • Richard M

    Hello Steve,

    Things look rough now, but I don’t think we have enough insight to say.

    Are a lot of these issues specific to the V2 Starship? I could be forgiven for suspecting that. But V3 doesn’t exist yet, so I can hardly begin to make comparisons.

  • Jeff Wright

    On how to turn solar sails

    https://phys.org/news/2025-06-solar.html

    Researchers from the University of New South Wales have proposed an elegant solution inspired by Japan’s groundbreaking IKAROS mission: Reflectivity Control Devices, or RCDs. These are essentially electronic mirrors that can change how they reflect sunlight with the flip of a switch.

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