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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.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, 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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Russia successfully launches new Progress freighter to ISS

Russia today successfully placed a new Progress freighter into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Kazakhstan.

The freighter will dock with ISS on March 2, 2025, docking with the aft port of the Zvezda module, the core module of the Russian half of the station. I guarantee that during that docking the hatch will be closed between the American and Russian segments, as that is now NASA’s policy because of its concern about the stress fractures in Zvezda.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

25 SpaceX
9 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

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

  • geoffc

    Interesting that they are actually using the aft port. I guess they need to refuel the station for reboost. That is the only port with the plumbing to refuel I believe.

    I bet that the hatch between the core Zvezda and the docking module will be closed, and the crew will be in their Soyuz for the docking as well. Just in case.

    This was so frustrating. Not a single article I read, bemoaning Musk’s tweet about ending the ISS mentioned the leaks, which is the primary reason to end it sooner. Kind of a critical detail. End it before they all die, usually is a reasonable discussion point.

  • Richard M

    However malign a force Russia might be in current affairs, it’s still melancholy to see how far their space sector has fallen, not just from its Soviet peak, but even from the period of post-Yeltsin recovery in the 00’s and early 10’s. The Soviet peak was 100+ launches per year. Even that Russian peak was busting out 30 or so launches per year.

    Now here we are, two months into 2025, and the Russians have a grand total of two orbital launches.

  • geoffc: Let me correct you: “Not a single article I read — except Zimmerman’s posts here at Behind the Black — mentioned the leaks.”

  • Dick Eagleson

    Richard M,

    Decline is a choice. Russia has chosen to spend its final years in futile wars of expansion chasing the phantom of a Soviet imperial restoration. Everything else has been subordinated to that hopeless iron dream. About all that can be said of this disastrous choice is that it materially hastens the day when, to paraphrase Hugo Drax, Russia will be put out of our misery.

  • geoffc

    Robert, I stand accurately corrected. My apologies.

  • geoffc: No apology required (though I accept it with amusement).

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