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Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short 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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Watch a rocket tank being built, mostly by robots

Capitalism in space: The video below the fold shows the process by which Interorbital Systems built a rocket test tank for the Neptune smallsat rocket it is developing. It is definitely worth watching if you want to see the future of complex manufacturing. Robotic equipment does most of the work, in a precise manner that would be impossible for humans, which therefore allows for the construction of engineering designs that were previously impossible or too expensive. Now, such designs can be built relatively cheaply, and repetitively.

Hat tip Doug Messier at Parabolic Arc.


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

  • wayne

    Yes, interesting video! Is there a companion video where they pressurize it until it explodes?

    Mitch-
    good stuff.

    I’d nominate this series as one of the better portrayals of historical, hypnotic, mass assembly:
    Master Hands (Part IV) 1936
    Chevrolet assembly plant, Flint, Mi.
    https://youtu.be/YtNXTezmZpE

  • Edward

    wayne asked: “Yes, interesting video! Is there a companion video where they pressurize it until it explodes?

    Be careful when testing to destruction. One time, we tested to destruction the standoffs for a chilled electronics box, thinking that our design would impress the customer at the high dynamic G-load that it took to break the composite standoffs. Instead of awe, the customer was shocked, saying “the unit broke?” The best laid plans of mice and engineers …

  • ken anthony

    This is the basic question of capital investment that began with the industrial revolution and accelerated with numeric computer controls. It’s justified when economics says it is.

    A technician I know justified by one act his employment to the end of time by adding a sensor that avoided tool breakage on a row of powder presses he worked with by stopping the machine from double punching a part. Machines can be impressive but it’s people that make things happen.

  • pzatchok

    Could you imagine up-scaling this tech and building space habitats using a reusable, inflatable mold almost a 100 meters long and 50 meters in diameter.

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