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Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. 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.

 

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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May 19, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Russia and Uganda sign deal not to deploy weapons in space
  • This agreement, like the Biden administration’s call for a similar ban, is worthless. When it comes time that someone wants to use force in space, force will be used, whether morally right or not. And the victim will have no choice but to respond in kind. That simply is the way of all things.

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

6 comments

  • sippin_bourbon

    Only $125k a person?
    I am glad my daughter is already married.
    I feel I am dodging a bullet there.

  • David Ross

    Well at least Black Sky will have a launchpad and fuel to rent/sell to RocketLab when/if they get it built. Cape Canaveral is running out of that space.

  • Patrick Underwood

    Very happy to learn that Uganda has agreed not to put weapons in space.

  • Jerry Greenwood

    I’d like to see how Uganda will enforce that treaty.

  • James Street

    The other day Jordan Peterson recorded a 2 hour video with engineer / scientist Brian Roemmele discussing Artificial Intelligence and ChatGPT specifically. The discussion was more from the psychological side.

    ChatGPT and the Dawn of Computerized Hyper-Intelligence | Brian Roemmele | EP 357
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_E4t7tWHUY

    Some of my take aways:
    • Jordan Peterson has been using ChatGTP for a month to do advanced research on obscure topics. He asked it to write a graduate level paper crossing one of the schools of psychology with the writings of a famous writer like Solzhenitsyn and he said it did a good job.
    • AI will be a better teacher to children than humans. It can do things like watch a child’s facial expression and eye movement and study their learning style and strengths and weaknesses and constantly monitor and improve their teaching style. The child will learn in one hour what they currently do in one day.
    • We will have a personal AI on our device that we communicate with that then that communicates with the global AI in order to protect our privacy and from the bad guys using AI to harm us.
    • They talk a little about the downside of AI already covered in science fiction movies.

  • Jeff Wright

    The China launch…smelled like Wal-Mart

    Hope it’s debris lands on this dufus
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lukas_Walton

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