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The time has come for my annual short pre-Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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Virgin Galactic’s Unity makes second powered flight

Capitalism in space: Virgin Galactic’s Unity suborbital spaceship made its second powered flight yesterday, reaching Mach 1.9 and firing its engine for about 30 seconds.

The official company video of the flight is below the fold.


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

5 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    So, they’ve gotten to where the Bell X-2 was in the mid Fifties (and, to be fair, credit to Boeing for the B-50 carrier aircraft)

    https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=Bell+X-2+for+FSX&&view=detail&mid=6CA44ABAF027800F52BC6CA44ABAF027800F52BC&&FORM=VDRVRV

    To use an expression from my dad’s home state, “Richard Branson, more hat than cattle”)

  • Edward

    Col Beausabre wrote: “Richard Branson, more hat than cattle

    Hopefully Branson’s herd will grow larger than his hat.

  • pzatchok

    Watch the craft under power/

    It does not look stable. It was wiggling all over the place.

  • wodun

    So, they’ve gotten to where the Bell X-2 was in the mid Fifties (and, to be fair, credit to Boeing for the B-50 carrier aircraft)

    But are they doing it now?

    I understand what you are getting at but just because something was done in the past doesn’t mean doing it now is no big deal.

    For example: what about when we land on the Moon again? Sure we did it in the past but we haven’t in decades and the technology that will allow us to do so now, will be far more advanced that what we used before.

  • Edward

    I suspect that Col Beausabre understands that this is a developmental test that is a step in the direction of what SpaceShipOne already has done. They are checking out SpaceShipTwo’s performance and are working their way to a full mission profile. The wiggle that pzatchok noticed could be part of the test plan (testing out control), or it could be an unexpected performance issue. SpaceShipOne had a worse case of unexpected spinning roll on one of its flights.

    Second flight to space, first of two X-Prize flights:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXNkUNP75-Q (10 minutes, unexpected roll begins at 1 minute into powered flight)

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