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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

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SpaceX gears up for first Falcon Heavy flight

The competition heats up: SpaceX has already begun construction of one of the booster cores for its first test flight of Falcon Heavy, and expects to have all built by summer.

They have not yet decided on the payload or goal of that first test flight, though they appear to still be aiming for an November launch.

Meanwhile, they have a 1:21 am (eastern) Falcon 9 commercial launch tonight, in which they will also attempt another first stage barge landing.

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

3 comments

  • wodun

    Should be cool to watch them try and land all 3 cores. They could do a video with that tiled Brady Bunch effect.

  • Edward

    The video embedded in the second link is excellent.

    First, there is a sound that I suspect corresponds with shipboard thrusters that help to stabilize the pitch and roll of the barge.

    As the rocket touches down, we see the Falcon 9 skid on the deck as sideways momentum is dissipated.

    The sound that I believe corresponds with the thrusters is absent after the engine shuts down, and the barge resumes the pitch and roll.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDK5TF2BOhQ

    Wodun,
    The animation in this video may be what you are hoping for:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ca6x4QbpoM

  • NormD

    Seems to be some confusion as to whether the F9 launch is Thurs or Fri.

    I think it’s Friday.

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