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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.

 

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Luxembourg offers prizes for new space business proposals

Capitalism in space: Luxembourg yesterday announced that it will award two prizes, worth a total of 430,000 Euros, for new innovative space business ideas.

The call for submissions covers the full chain for exploiting space resources, from searching for minerals, mining and selling the processed product.The proposals should include a long-term view for developing space resources and be able to generate an economic return in the short and medium term.

The first award is a €400,000 prize to support a study under the Luxembourg national space program managed by the ESA. The second, for €30,000, is for early-stage projects and offers an investing campaign on www.spacestarters.com.

The ministry will support both award winners by offering workspace for the companies.

It sounds like they will entertain practically any ideas put forth. The deadline to submit is September 8, with the award announcement made in November.

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

  • LocalFluff

    I’m a bit suspicious of these lĂ«tzebuerger.
    They are a bunch of farmers who take very well care of themselves by getting alot of EU investments, simply for geographical logistical reasons. Because lazy bureaucrats gravitate there for practical logistic purposes.

    Entering the city you pass a parking lot, some banking high rises, the shopping street, the high rises where the EU translators work. And a great new concert hall and a swimming stadium. All the billions of the EU is flowing into them, these farmers who rarely even visit their city, where low paid French guest workers populate the shops.

    Those farmers certainly know how to suck money out of others. I don’t know that will reach them to space. Their innovations are more social than technical, AFAIK.

  • Edward

    Perhaps Luxembourg has a lot of agriculture, but it is also home of one of the largest commercial communications satellite companies: SES. Luxembourg may be small, but they have large aspirations for doing business in space and the experience to do it. Despite their lack of launch capability, it looks to me that Luxembourg will quickly become one of the leaders in the space industry.

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