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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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September 19, 2025 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.

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

13 comments

  • Jive Lady: “Oh, stewardess! I speak jive.” ‘Airport’ 1980 Paramount

    It looks like Starcloud and Mission Space are offering a predictive space-weather service. At this point, maybe a solution looking for a problem.

  • Steve H.

    Voyager I image: OK, I give up. I guess it’s not flat after all.

  • Jeff Wright

    If I suggest an Orbital Antenna Farm, I get laughed at.

    A large, inert dish where electronics boxes is all that needs swapping, apart from roll on solar that can go over old, more rugged panels. 1950’s-1970’s tech that can laugh at solar flares with electronic boxes lined with lead–maybe solar thermal with fluids that “clot” instead of spew. Fluidics can be inert.

    Old automatic transmissions have elaborate channels. Where A.I. might be useful is in designing solar thermal channels that can re-route. Now, I understand there are chips that use light and even sound.

    Rad hardening isn’t the only path to space-rating.

    A few of these antenna farms covers the planet, don’t annoy astronomers –and is useful to everyone but gamers and day traders.

    Such tech might even endure a Carrington Event if built robustly enough, with early warning.

    –and I get laughed to scorn if I mention it.

    But put over-compact chips and server farm bits outside the protection of the atmosphere–and fools through money at it hand-over-foot.

    There is an old saying about living life as if it is your last day to walk the Earth–but PLAN as if you will live 1,000 years.

    Tell that to libertarians, and all they hear is “plan” and they start red-baiting.

  • James Street

    It was good to see Elon Musk at Charlie Kirk’s service today

    DogeDesigner @cb_doge
    Elon Musk on Why Charlie Kirk was killed?
    “He was killed because his words made a difference. He was showing people the light & he was killed by the dark.”
    15 seconds
    1:35 PM · Sep 21, 2025
    https://x.com/cb_doge/status/1969863013986390208

    We’re putting the band back together.

    Dan Scavino Jr.🇺🇸 @DanScavino
    @POTUS @ElonMusk
    4:43 PM · Sep 21, 2025
    https://x.com/DanScavino/status/1969910461572198722

  • Jeff Wright

    Some good news in terms of energy generation.
    The MOXIE set-up was to require 6 tons of kit.

    That has perhaps been lowered to 800 kg:

    https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-3d-fuel-cells-reshape-sustainable.html

    Another step forward for fusion:
    https://techxplore.com/news/2025-09-experimental-proof-multiscale-coupling-plasma.html

  • Richard M

    Bob, I looked around to see if you commented on this, so if you did, I missed it, and I apologize in advance. But a few days ago, Christian Davenport published an article at the Washington Post working from an excerpt from his new book (“Rocket Dreams: Musk, Bezos and the Inside Story of the New, Trillion-Dollar Space Race”) detailing how SpaceX employees made the first Dragon docking prototype out of . . . bike parts. And how a very skeptical NASA was brought round to accept that they’d come up with a better solution than NASA had.

    In NASA’s design, there were six mechanical arms, or actuators, that were used to maneuver the soft-capture ring into place. The arms were programmed to act like springs to be able to absorb the impact when the spacecraft came in contact with the station. But they were complex, required a lot of electrical power, and heavy. If the software or electronics controlling the arms failed, the whole docking could go awry. Mathews and his intern, Craig Western, developed a simpler design using mountain bike springs, which required no software or electronics.

    When their prototype was finished, Matthews and Western showed it to Mark Juncosa, one of Musk’s most trusted engineers. Unlike some at the company, who shied away from dealing with Musk directly, Juncosa was unafraid of the boss. He told Matthews this was something Musk would want to see and that they should go show him the prototype that instant. Without an appointment, they rolled the McDocker over to Musk’s cubicle and asked him to take a look.

    Musk studied it intensely, pulling and pushing on the docking ring, while rubbing his chin. After just a few minutes, he said, “Yep, let’s do this.” There were no deliberations. No consultations with other engineers. No memos or meetings. Musk liked what he saw and simply made the decision to go.

    “At SpaceX, once you have the green light you can just run a million miles an hour in that direction,” said Matthews, who is now the CEO of Astrolab, a company building a rover for the moon. “There’s no hand-wringing about it. You just start going.”

    Non-paywalled link:
    https://archive.is/depE1

    Whatever people think of Elon in other respects, we get reminded once again of just how essential he has been to SpaceX’s staggering success.

    And the fact that Matthews is now CEO at Astrolab shows his other long-term legacy: He’s remaking the entire American space industry via pollination of some of his most brilliant employees into the senior positions of other startups.

  • Richard M

    This is a first: SpaceX engineer Anna Menon has been announced as a member of the newest NASA astronaut class. She flew to orbit on board the Polaris Dawn mission last year, and now joins the NASA family for two years of astronaut training.

    https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-selects-all-american-2025-class-of-astronaut-candidates/

    FYI: Anna’s husband Anil is already a NASA astronaut himself.

  • Richard M

    P.S. As far as I know, this is the first time a new member of a NASA astronaut class has ever been to orbit before — but, I am sure, it will not be the last!

    Menon has already set the altitude record for a woman astronaut. Unless she is selected to go to the Moon or Mars on a mission, she won’t be beating that feat at NASA!

  • Richard M: I did not cover this, so thanks for posting it. To me it wasn’t really newsworthy, as it simply demonstrates again what has been clear about SpaceX and Musk for more than a decade.

    Still, it is good to document this truth one more time.

  • Richard M

    Hi Bob,

    Oh, I wasn’t even sure it deserved a Behind the Black post of its own. But the book looks like it might be worth a purchase now, and worth flagging for other combox regulars if nothing else.

    Also, the New York Times review of it last week was critical of it for all the predictable reasons (“billionaires suck”), which makes me want to go get it even more.

  • Richard M

    P.S. Re Anna Menon

    Turns out that there are TWO SpaceXers in this new astronaut class: Yuri Kubo, who has worked at SpaceX for 12 years, was also selected.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Richard M,

    So SpaceX alums are 20% of the new NASA astronaut class. Terrific. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if, by the mid-2030s, these alums are drawing SpaceX paychecks again along with several more of this new astronaut class. By that time there should be appreciably more SpaceXers than NASA staffers in space on any given day. Human bodies will follow spacecraft and total mass as a category of launchables that SpaceX dominates.

    Davenport was on the Off-Nominal Discord podcast last week. The “McDocker” story was part of the show. Am definitely going to buy his book. Writing style is very “Berger-esque.”

  • Jeff Wright

    Professor Young Seop Kim of POSTECH has managed to create a new alloy with a yield strength of 1,029 MPa, tensile strength of 1,271 MPa and an elongation of 31.1% just through casting alone using “core-shell” structure–from today’s phys.org.

    Journal of Materials Science & Technology
    Vol. 242
    See pages 213-225 of the upcoming issue to be dated 20 January 2026

    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmst.2025.04.017

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