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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.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

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SpaceX’s second first stage barge landing

Below is video of the Falcon 9 first stage landing last night. There isn’t really much to see, because this happened at night. However, I must repeat that this happened at night. In other words, SpaceX was able to bring its first stage down accurately in the middle of the ocean onto a tiny barge in the dark.

Who says the impossible is not possible?

During the live telecast, the audience broke out into a chant of “USA! USA!”, as they did after the previous first stage landings. Can you guess why?

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

  • Cotour

    What was viewed as impossible yesterday is now everyday.

    Dreams drive force of vision, force of vision married to the fruit of capitalist endeavor and the willingness to risk it can under the right circumstances result in the impossible becoming the everyday. JGL

    (Government’s roll? Creating the proper atmosphere for it all to occur)

  • Steve Earle

    Wow. Just Wow.

    What a great video. Every mission they do gets better in every aspect, and the hosts enthusiasm is infectious! :-)

    I will be showing this to my young son, we both love space and I am certain that these SpaceX videos will encourage him towards a career in science or engineering. (Right now he just wants to be the first Astronaut on Mars… )

    I even love how they signed off at the end “So say we all” Sounds like someone there is a BSG fan :-)

  • Mitch S.

    I recall you posting the other day that Space X didn’t expect this to succeed due to the mission profile (I assume not as much fuel left for the recovery).
    But they nailed it anyway!

    I heard the podcast of you on Livingston’s show.
    Your bubbly enthusiasm for Space X (and private space in general) is quite understandable.
    Musk and Bezos make me think of characters from a Heinlein story.
    We’re living in the Sci-Fi age!
    (BTW I also understand Livingston’s discomfort considering the ad spot he kept delaying was for Orbital/ATK!)

  • Edward

    Mitch S. wrote: “We’re living in the Sci-Fi age!”

    Science fiction becomes science fact. We just have to pay attention to see notice that it happened:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqo4p3HYwLQ (1 minute)

    It looks like they have figured out how to do it at the limits of their capabilities. With the impossible becoming routine, on to the next challenge.

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