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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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NATO to issue new space strategy to address growth in commercial sector

Capitalism in space? NATO officials at a meeting this week proposed issuing a new space strategy next year, designed to deal with the changing relationship in space between government and private enterprise.

During the Commercial Space Forum at NATO, participants discussed the threats they face, from cyber-attacks against ground systems, to jamming or spoofing of GPS and other satellite communications signals. They also addressed the importance of further investment in areas such as cybersecurity and sharing information about threats.

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment, Ms Tarja Jaakkola, highlighted the need for a new relationship between the military and the commercial sector, “where both sides can learn from another, and where we can support and harness the entrepreneurial spirit and technological innovation essential to keep our defences strong and effective.”

More information here. It appears that NATO officials have realized that they can no longer do things as they have for the past half century, whereby they design, build, and own the space assets they launch. They must instead do what NASA and the Pentagon has been doing, become the customer that buys such products from the private enterprise.

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

3 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    Re spoofing GPS.

    Back in the Eighties when the US Naval Academy announced it was discontinuing teaching celestial navigati, ,I wrote to the Superintendent in protest, predicting that ways would be found to meacon the gps signal. The British invented the procedure as “Aspirin” to confuse the Headache of the German Knickebein and X Gerat electronic navigation aids.

    “Meaconing is the interception and rebroadcast of navigation signals. These signals are rebroadcast on the received frequency, typically with power higher than the original signal, to confuse enemy navigation. Consequently, aircraft or ground stations are given inaccurate bearings.

    Successful meaconing can cause aircraft to be lured into “hot” (ambush-ready) landing zones or enemy airspace, ships to be diverted from their intended routes, bombers to expend ordnance on false targets, or ground stations to receive inaccurate bearings or position locations.

    The term ‘meacon’ is a portmanteau of masking beacon.”

    The MIJI – Meaconing, Interference, Jamming, Intrusion – Report is NATO standard

  • Jeff Wright

    Meaconing is likely why Iranian missiles missed the Mossad HQ were I to hazard a guess.

    Now they need folks on the lookout for guys hitting the site with laser pointers during the next wave.

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