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June 22, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold.

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 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

6 comments

  • Calvin Dodge

    Minor nit: the OKC bomb used ammonium nitrate, not ammonium perchlorate.

  • wayne

    Calvin–
    I heard that as well. It was ammonium nitrate + fuel-oil mixture, as far as I know.

    The Huntsman’s, are all crony-rino-statists. Don’t let the Mormon stuff or the Cancer Institute fool you

  • wayne

    FYI–
    ammonium perchlorate is available from Sigma Aldrich, retail, for “$211 the kilogram.” This is the most expensive way/amount, to buy it, but gives you a relative value-measure by which to judge. They have 4 kilo’s in stock for immediate shipment.

    My son-in-law (chem engineer) informs me this can be synthesized on a mass industrial-scale, fairly easily and in relatively short order. (on the order of week’s, and not month’s) EPA approval however, will take 12-18 months.

    It is a “specialty-chemical” and heavily regulated by the EPA, under the clean drinking water act of 2011. This explains in part, why only well-connected chemical companies play in this market.
    (Huntsman is one a few companies that can afford to comply with EPA regulations.)

    It does have a definite shelf-life as well, and can not be stored indefinitely. (And it costs a fortune to clean-up, if you spill it.)
    (It’s an Energizer-Bunny type of Government Contract, it’s keep paying & paying & paying.)

  • LocalFluff

    I thought there were plenty of solid rocket fuel being produced, for military ICBMs and anti-tank missiles and what not. Maybe they prefer other types. Fuel represents only 2% or so of the total launcher costs, so it doesn’t seem very “strategic” to “protect” its production domestically.

  • Calvin Dodge: You are correct. I allowed my memory to rule when I said that, which is always a mistake. Fact checking must always be done!

  • wodun

    Considering the military applications, there are reasons to protect domestic production other than cost. But there are probably better solutions to doing so.

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