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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.

 

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May 22, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

 

  • India targets May 29, 2023 for the next launch of its large GSLV rocket
  • It will place a GPS-type satellite into oribt.

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

2 comments

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “This is one of China’s interior spaceports, so they apparently recognize that their rocket stages can fall on someone’s head, and are proud that in 2022 they avoided any such tragedies. Well, bully for them.

    This is a good thing. It shows that they care. Right up until there is an injury or casualty, then they are likely to just say “oops. Better luck next time.”

  • Max

    The Z-man asked;

    “The fundamental question remains: How could liquid water have been there in a climate that is too cold and an atmosphere too thin?”

    The evidence for flowing liquid is everywhere. (we assume it’s water). At one time I would not have believed it, until the pictures from the satellites started coming back.

    The way Mars is today, is not how it has always been.

    I have believed for a long time the hypothesis that the collapse of our mostly oxygen atmosphere
    into water, killing the dinosaurs, and the beginning of the “ice ages” was triggered by of cloud of gas from the local chimney, perhaps from a supernova, similar to the dust between us and the center of our own galaxy.
    It passed through changing our solar system forever, adding vast amounts of hydrolyzed carbon (methane) and hydrolyzed nitrogen (ammonia) as well as other light gases on all the planets in our solar system. (adding mass to all the planets and ice to the outer moons)
    Europa is much smaller than Mars, and yet is the said to have a large amount of liquid under the ice.
    There’s good evidence that Mars was once completely covered in similar ice, and because of it’s proximity to the sun, it’s once thicker atmosphere and volume has blown away with the solar wind.
    All that’s left is the ice caps.

    If there was liquid under the ice slushing around with every rotation, it would explain why there’s no shoreline, (except maybe the cliffs that’s around some of the volcanoes) and extreme erosion of the canyons and bare rock formations that wind alone cannot explain, especially in a low density atmosphere.
    As the liquid under the ice froze, becoming glacier, it was just a matter time before it all evaporated away and left the planet… Except for what sunk deep below the sand.
    Perhaps there wasn’t much water that was liquid, much of the impact craters survived except in the northern hemisphere.
    Just guessing with a lot of imagination…

    By the way, Zhurong went to hibernation a year ago and hasn’t woken up… It might be dead.

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