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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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SpaceIL gets $5 million for its lunar lander/rover

Capitalism in space: SpaceIL, the Israeli non-profit building a lunar lander/rover that had been a finalist in the Google Lunar X-Price, announced today that it has received a $5 million donation from a Canadian billionaire.

SpaceIL announced Monday that [Sylvan] Adams would be joining their groundbreaking project and donating $5 million to the effort. The nonprofit organization’s spacecraft is due to be launched in early 2019 and reach the moon two months later, making Israel only the fourth country to soft-land on the lunar surface.

“This contribution to strengthening the Israeli space program, and encouraging education for excellence and innovation among the younger generation in Israel, is the best gift I could have asked for,” said Adams, who recently celebrated his 60th birthday, as he announced his contribution at the Israel Aerospaces Industries (IAI) MBT Space Division in Yehud, where the spacecraft is being assembled.

SpaceIL has said it’s mission is focused on education and inspiring Israel’s youth. If so, it seems to me that it is missing the boat. There is money to be made marketing their ability to build inexpensive planetary spacecraft.

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

4 comments

  • Andi

    ” launched in early 2019 and reach the moon two months later “.

    Given that Apollo got there in three days, I wonder what the trajectory will be that takes two months.

  • Edward

    Andi,
    This may help explain it:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceIL#Launch

    Once Sparrow is in Earth orbit and separated from the Falcon 9 launcher [as a secondary payload], and after several orbits around Earth, the spacecraft will slowly perform orbit raising. The orbit raising would take 2.5 month before reaching the Moon’s area of influence. Once there, the spacecraft will perform manuevers to be captured in a Lunar orbit, and orbit around the Moon between two weeks and 1 month. In the right orbit around the landing site, it will decelerate until soft-landing on the lunar surface.

    Rather than use one translunar injection burn, as Apollo did, Sparrow will use several burns to raise its apogee and will eventually be captured by the Moon.

  • Andi

    Thanks, Edward, that makes it quite clear. I assume the purpose of all this orbit raising is to save fuel over the TLI approach.

  • Edward

    Andi,
    I don’t know the engine that Sparrow uses, but generally speaking engines with better efficiency (higher specific impulse) tend to have lower thrust. Ion engines, for example, are very efficient but are very low thrust. With the greater efficiency, they can use less propellant to do the same task, which allowed the Dawn probe to visit both Vesta and Ceres asteroids.

    However, with lower thrust, they have more difficulty using the TLI approach, so using multiple apogee-raising thruster burns tends to help, as they can also take advantage of the Oberth effect, which is the added efficiency of using thrusters at perigee.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberth_effect

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