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The time has come for my annual short pre-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.

 

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Private Space wins the Race

Last night the National Interest posted an op-ed written by me and drawn from my policy paper, Capitalism in Space.

The title is “Private Space wins the Race.”

More buzz is good. Feel free to comment there, if you have the time.

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

  • ralph muha

    Last night I happened to watch this movie (for the umpteenth time):

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destination_Moon_(film)

    (quoting from wiki) “The film’s premise is that U.S. private industry will mobilize, finance, and manufacture the first spacecraft to the Moon, while making the assumption that the U.S. government will then be forced to purchase or lease this new technology to remain the dominant power in space and on the Moon. Industrialists are shown cooperating to support the private venture.”

  • Dick Eagleson

    I had the time, Robert.

    I made the modest proposal that SLS-Orion either be re-engineered for maximum reusability, or killed.

  • Dick: You realize that Congress will look at your proposal and see a justification for re-engineering SLS, starting over and giving it $3 billion a year for the next decade to make it reusable. It won’t be reusable, but it will then exist as a jobs program for another decade.

    This is not what we want. We can’t give Congress a choice. They have to kill it, period.

  • Edward

    Calvin Dodge,
    Thank you for the link. I had not found the online version, but I have posted a comment.

    Reviewing the other comments, it seems that Pace’s opinion is not popular with the Space News readership. Then again, it is possible that Space News readers are some of the wishful thinkers with a “deep desire … to believe that a path to the stars exists independent of political and economic realities [from Pace’s Op-ed].”

  • Calvin Dodge

    And it’s also possible that Pace’s views are related to his Institute’s sponsors, almost all of whom have suffered mightily due to competition from SpaceX.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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