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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

If you have been a regular reader and a fan of my work and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider doing so. I take no ads, I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands (most of the time). Thus, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:

 

1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.

 

2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
 

3. A Paypal Donation:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652


Starship 9-mile-high flight now set for no earlier than December 4th

Starship on launch pad
Click for LabPadre live stream from which this still was captured.

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has now scheduled the first 9-mile-high flight of its 8th Starship prototype for either December 4th, 5th, or 6th.

On Wednesday, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a temporary flight restriction for SpaceX to conduct a Starship launch from its facility near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. The notification allows the company to attempt a Starship hop on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, between the hours of 9am EST (14:00 UTC) and 6pm EST (23:00 UTC) daily. SpaceX must still obtain a launch license from the FAA for this flight.

The company’s founder and chief engineer, Elon Musk, has said SpaceX will attempt to fly Starship to an altitude of 15km to demonstrate the performance of three Raptor engines over the course of several minutes. The company’s previous flights to about 150 meters, in August and September, used a single Raptor engine.

This higher flight profile will take Starship above nearly 90 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, which will allow the company to do several new tests: assess the performance of body flaps on Starship, transition from using propellant from the main fuel tanks to smaller ones used for landing burns, and test the vehicle’s ability to reorient itself for returning to the launch site.

Look closely at the screen capture of Starship above. Note how there is no launch tower at all, and that the launchpad is simply a platform on which the ship sits. This lack indicates two things. First, the ship’s large diameter gives it a much lower center of gravity compared to all other rockets. It doesn’t need the launch tower for support. This is why SpaceX can move it back and forth from the assembly building on the equivalent of a large flatbed truck.

Second, the lack illustrates SpaceX’s lean and mean engineering style. When this spacecraft finally launches to orbit on top of a Super Heavy first stage, it will certainly need a launch tower, not so much for support but to fuel it and allow access to and from while on the launchpad. None of this infrastructure however is needed now for the ongoing development work. Why waste money and time building it when they don’t yet know the exact specifications of the final rocket itself?

SpaceX is taking advantage of the first point to do the second, thus speeding development and lowering its cost.

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 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

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