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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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Bell Telephone: Explaining mobile phone technology, c1946

An evening pause: Hat tip Jim Mallamace, who notes that he watched this video on his modern mobile phone.

What strikes me is how much we take this capability for granted, especially when you watch and see how “compact” the car units were. Yet, in the 1940s when this technology was first being developed the use of telephones themselves was only a few decades old. The very idea of being able to communicate instantly with anyone over long distances was still relatively new. Now it included talking to people at random locations. For the people of that time, this was exciting news harboring a bright future.

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

10 comments

  • wayne

    Jim-
    Nice selection. (I love this type of stuff.)

    To Mr. Z’s point, let’s back up 19 years….

    “How to use the Dial Phone”
    ATT/ PACBell
    https://archive.org/details/HowtoUse1927
    (unfortunately, this is silent. not sure if it was made that way or if the audio was lost)

    > Fresno California market– “Dial Telephone’s will be placed in service Midnight, May 28th.”

  • Mitch S.

    “unfortunately, this is silent. not sure if it was made that way or if the audio was lost)”

    Considering the first “talkie” came out in the fall of 1927, I’d say this was made in the “usual” silent manner.

    BTW this video can be useful for the younger generations. Some years ago I showed my 10 year old kid the dial phone at my dad’s house. She couldn’t figure out how to use it!

  • Andi

    Interesting that this type of communication was half-duplex, like using a walkie-talkie. Must’ve been a bit awkward for those on the landline side of the conversation.

  • Ralph Kramden

    Car telephones! What hooey! What’s next pocket phones! I’ll believe it when I see it on Dumont TV news!

  • Shaun

    I’m ashamed that, as an engineer, I wasn’t aware that mobile car phones were a thing in the late 40’s. Previously didn’t think that came until the 80’s. How wrong I was…. I’m especially impressed with how they were able to integrate raiowaves, base stations, and (at the time) cutting edge telephone trunck lines and telephone hubs. Must have been a monumental procedure, and effort, to perform a mobile call effectively in the style of a walki-talki. Makes me really appreciate the modern mobile technology we have today. I’ll probably laugh at my own comments in 10 years…

  • Shaun

    Typo corrections: Walkie Talkie* and radio waves*. The pitfalls of mobile technology! The irony…

  • wayne

    Shaun–
    ‘World’s First Mobile Phone’ (1922)
    British Pathé
    https://youtu.be/ILiLaRXHUr0
    0:58

  • Jeff Wright

    I remember car-phones from the 7o’s detective show Cannon. And that Lincoln! I remember a guy talking into a Dick Tracy watch-but it required the Orbital Antenna Farm. Satellite Phones are about the size of old moble phones-one used by a dying climber atop Everest to say goodbye to his family. I think he is still up there. One chopper design did make it to the summit-lightly loaded however.

  • Edward

    A car phone was featured in the 1954 movie Sabrina.

  • wayne

    Edward-
    Excellent obscure cultural-reference!

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