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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.

 

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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.

 

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Mother, Father, Sister, Brother – The Sound of Philadelphia

An evening pause: This instrumental music, used as the theme music for the 1970s television show, Soul Train, has only one significant vocal line: “People all over the world!” I think the visuals used here, of Earth taken from the International Space Station, make that line seem especially appropriate.

Hat tip James Stephens.

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

3 comments

  • Cotour

    The coming dark age: (there are people that seriously have this discussion, it has been presented to me as such)

    https://youtu.be/mtZpyj4vpnM

    This video must disturb their theory :)

  • Ted

    Enjoyed this clip a lot! One of the most interesting parts is the movement of the solar arrays on ISS. Most of the pictures of the ISS on line are static shots. But ISS is a working machine hundreds of miles up in space. It runs 24 hours a day 365 days a year. Also the lightning flashes very interesting. What a cool place we live in (on, under above)!

  • Edward

    Ted,
    I, too, enjoy the lightning. I once worked in a lab in which a couple of the scientists were studying lightning. Among their data were some videos from space of storms. One of the scientists mentioned that the estimate was that, worldwide, there were a hundred lightning flashes each second (this would be around 3 billion each year). My own thought at the time, judging from the field of view and he flash-rate of the video, was that the estimate may be an order of magnitude too high, that there might be more like 10 flashes per second (around 300 million per year). Either way, a billion flashes per year seems to me to be a reasonable rough order of magnitude estimate.

    The music goes nicely with this video. Although it presents largely the dark side, images of Earth from space are very beautiful. The atmosphere is a pretty sight, as are the city lights, clouds, and coast lines. I especially like the auroras, and the flashing lightning attracts the eye, of course.

    No wonder astronauts like to look out the window.

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