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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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Russians look at lunar caves for their lunar bases

Using images from Japanese and American lunar orbiters, the Russians are looking at lunar caves to build Moon bases by 2030.

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

One comment

  • Kelly Starks

    Don’t get to excited – Russia does a lot of studies for grand future projects, but given they still havn’t gotten past their 1960’s Soyuz…..

    Frankly my favorite project was the joint McDonnell Douglas / Shimizu corporation study.
    http://www.shimz.co.jp/english/theme/dream/moonbase.html

    Talk about commercial space development! Shimizu is one of the biggest construction firms in the world, and McDonnel Doughlas was the biggest aerospace firm, adn their study advanced to the point of developing adn testing casting concrete wall in vacume, with concrete made out of lunar soil (which turned out to be much stronger then concrete made on Earth due to the lack of “Organic contaminents”. [Always a silver lining..]

    My idea of a commercial / International space project for NASA would not be the (poison pill loaded) COTS of CCDev, but just issuing a contract for a commercially constructed lunar base; that NASA, international agencies, and commercials, would rent spacde and transport services to/from from. It would destroy NASA, but could be a big step forward for human development of space, and lowering cost to orbit – and dramaticly lower the cost of returning to the moon. The base on the web page would be a bit large for the start – but for the quarter trillion budgeted for vSE, this would be doable. REalisticly, the $100B + projected cost for the NASA lead development of the Constellation set of vehicles could EASILY develop the vehicles, construct the moon base (say a motel sized version of Shimizu’s airport terminal sized base) and operate it for 20 years.

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