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Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

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The first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic

The competition heats up: Solar Impulse 2 has successfully completed the first solar-powered flight across the Atlantic in the 15th leg of its journey around the world.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

2 comments

  • PeterF

    Never be commercially viable. Now a lighter-than-air craft, like maybe a Zeppelin, would travel faster AND have a useful payload capacity.

  • Edward

    This may be more of a demonstration of current technology. This solar-powered aircraft stayed aloft over the course of 2-1/2 nights. It took off in the middle of the night, demonstrating that the power storage capacity was large yet lightweight.

    Flying to 28,000 feet suggests that there was some weighty life support hardware on board. The pilot would need oxygen and something for warmth. The power gathering and efficiency of the solar cells demonstrates that a piloted, long-distance, solar powered aircraft is much more feasible than it was not so long ago.

    The article, below, says: “It’s a demonstration that the tech is reliable.” But also listen to what the pilot says, in the 1-1/2-minute embedded video, about why they are doing this:
    http://www.cnn.com/2016/04/24/travel/solar-impulse-2-plane-california/

    The Spirit of St. Louis was a demonstration of what was possible. It was not a plane that could carry passengers, but it demonstrated that reliable long-distance flight had finally become possible with the technology available in 1927. These guys are doing something similar, demonstrating some possibilities of solar power, and possibly inspiring other uses, too.

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