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My annual Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind the Black is now over. Though it sagged in the middle, the final week was an amazing barn-burner. My readers responded in an astonishing manner, so that 2024 now looks like it will turn out to be the best year for me financially since I started this webpage in 2010.

 

Thank you to all! I am always at a loss to express my gratitude for this support. No one is required to pay anything to read my work. And yet so many of you are still willing to do so. Thank you again!

 

If you didn't donate or subscribe but like my work, please consider doing so. This support by my readers allows 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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November 8, 2024 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

My posting continues to be light for numerous reasons. Though all is generally well, the present condition of my eyes sometimes makes reading and writing difficult. Today was a particularly bad day, the double vision and blind spot making if very hard to see the words I put on the screen. Sorry.

Note too that next week posting will also be light, because I have relatives visiting from Israel and I am taking them to see the Grand Canyon for their first time. I might be able to post, but can make no guarantees.

My apologizes to my loyal readers for all this. but sometimes life gets in the way.

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

12 comments

  • MDN

    Bob:

    Go decompress and relax. Show your relatives Monument Valley too, what I like to describe as the anti-canyon. At the Grand Canyon you can easily appreciate the scale which is huge, but in Monument Valley you look at the buttes and then have to imagine how ALL of the material from horizon to horizon had to erode away to leave them standing and that takes a while to sink in and then you just go Wow.

    Medicine Hat Rock is a worthwhile sight as well for those looking to be amazed.

    Enjoy!

  • Steve Richter

    Gosh I hope Elon stays far away from Washington. There is nothing he will be able to accomplish there that republican politicians should/have to do themselves. The country is now fully aware of the Starship rocket program. All regulatory roadblocks will be cleared. What remains is the engineering, the construction, and the focus on an ambitious timeline. SpaceX can accomplish in the next few years what is the equivalent of the 14 years it took to build Falcon 9 and Dragon. There is no time for Elon to spend in meetings on balancing the budget.

  • Dick Eagleson

    As has been demonstrated in a number of different ways already, Elon is probably the only person who can make a meaningful dent in the federal budget. It would just be one more instance of the man pulling off something that conventional wisdom thinks to be impossible.

  • Steve Richter

    “… Elon is probably the only person who can make a meaningful dent in the federal budget. …”

    If Elon is the only person who can solve the deficit problem then the first order of business is to replace a bunch of congressional representatives. It is congress which needs to hold hearings and figure out how to slash spending. And then congress has to stand there and answer to the millions of people who are upset and fearful that the subsidies they rely on to pay their rent or to be employed have been eliminated.

    There are lots of problems looming on the horizon for Trump to handle. Search the name “howard lutnick”. He is a wall street friend of Trump who is telling him that tariffs are great because they raise revenue and spur domestic manufacturing and employment. Lutnick is a likely choice as the secretary of the treasury. The problem with the Lutnick faction is that they could have Trump convinced that the deficit can be reduced by the tariff revenue and economic growth. Which is a big problem for Elon as the guy in Washington working to reduce spending. He will not have the full support of the president. So not only will Elon be distracted from his work at SpaceX. But he will end up making inconsequential progress on spending.

  • Jeff Wright

    While he can bend and weld steel all day, personalities are far less pliable.

  • Steve Richter observed:

    “If Elon is the only person who can solve the deficit problem then the first order of business is to replace a bunch of congressional representatives.”

    So glad I wasn’t drinking anything.

  • John

    They only way to fix the federal budget is via appropriations and a return of a debt ceiling, instead of continuing resolutions and blank check omi bus slush funds. It will take a protracted government shut-down and rejection of lots of omni bus bills and CRs to force the elected part of the government to do its job. They will actually have to defund some things. Doubt Trump will force it. DOGE is cute, but other than reviewing and fixing spending bills before they’re enacted, it’s a pipe dream.

    Also, X is filled with neat video of something re-entering over the southwestern US.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Steve Richter,

    The “millions of people who are upset and fearful that the subsidies they rely on to pay their rent or to be employed have been eliminated” all work for federal, state and local governments. And they are mostly Democrats who voted for the Harris-Walz ticket. Elections have consequences.

    There are legions of such people whose continued employment in their current jobs is actually injurious to the health of the Republic. Elon won’t have any trouble finding at least $2 trillion in doable cuts to the current federal budget. There are likely at least another $2 trillion in permanent annual reductions possible from state and local government payrolls via furloughing of various classes of bureaucratic parasites. With Trump also planning to seal the border and deport millions of illegals, the U.S. labor market will easily be able to absorb the ex-government cadre – provided they are psychologically capable of doing actual useful work. About many of them, I have serious doubts on that score.

  • wayne

    President Reagan’s Remarks Regarding the Grace Report
    January 16, 1984
    https://youtu.be/tEizct1P19o
    14:20

  • Max

    Trumps list of things to do.
    https://theblogginghounds.com/2024/11/10/watch-trump-outlines-his-plan-to-destroy-the-deep-state/

    DOGE? Do only good everyone? Jordan mentioned it on his psychoanalysis of trumps X-Men.
    As for Elon musk, he’s been very busy lately… Making it to the top 20 Game players in Diablo four.

  • wayne

    Dave Smith
    An Address to the Libertarian Party
    11-11-24
    https://youtu.be/zOdlx5ivEEo
    (1:09:46)

  • Steve Richter

    Looks like Elon is going to dedicate blocks of time to the Trump admin. The financial times today has a full page story saying Elon is asking his trusted advisors to spend time in Washington. Two of the principals from the all in podcast, Jason and David Sachs, are mentioned in the article.

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