In celebration of today’s eighth anniversary of my first post on Behind the Black, I have now begun my annual fund-raising campaign.

That first post described the opening of the recently recovered return capsule of Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission. The mission had been plagued by technical difficulties. Yet engineers had managed to get it back to Earth, and this was their first attempt to see if it had captured any asteroid material. In the end the spacecraft had managed to capture a tiny amount of minuscule particles.

At this moment, eight years later, Hayabusa-2 is approaching another asteroid, Ryugu, is working perfectly, and if all goes right, will return with far more material.

If you want me to be able to report on these upcoming events, on Ryugu, on Mars, on the Moon, and most especially in the political halls of Washington and elsewhere that unfortunately dictates much of what happens in space, please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, as described in the box above. Anything you contribute will help, even the smallest amount.