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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

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Sarah Connolly & the BBC Orchestra – Rule Britannia

An evening pause: I like this verse, which they reprised, with the chorus, which all people should echo.

When Britain first, at Heaven’s command
Arose from out the azure main;
This was the charter of the land,
And guardian angels sang this strain:

“Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
“Britons never will be slaves.”

Hat tip Jim Mallamace.

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

8 comments

  • Robert Pratt

    A great lyric it is and long among my favorites.

  • Jake V

    That was really well done.

    In listening to refrain:

    “Rule, Britannia! rule the waves:
    “Britons never never shall be slaves.”

    I keep wondering why on earth the United Kingdom ever chose to give up it’s sovereignty and become essentially slaves to Brussels.

  • wayne

    Jake V–
    highly suggest a lecture–
    “Britain in the 20th Century: Attempts to Construct a Socialist Commonwealth 1945-1951”

    https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/britain-in-the-20th-century-the-attempt-to-construct-a-socialist-commonwealth

  • LocalFluff

    I’m surprised to read Americans appreciating this. Maybe the revolutionary spirit has abated and today your rightfully born Queen, at the grace of God, can claim her little cotton colony back from the rebels without too much resistance? The rejoined colony could be named “Greater Bahamas”.

  • LocalFluff

    Queen Elisabeth II was born only 50 years after the US civil war. She’s 91 in two weeks. US history is so very brief.

  • wayne

    Neil Young
    “God Save the Queen”/”America” medley
    https://youtu.be/y-nPsrX05Rk?t=150
    (4:11)

  • LocalFluff

    wayne,
    The arch bishop kisses the queen?
    That’s out of outrageous!

    The insane rituals of European monarchs:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inKSvLk7kiI

    Imagine the mental illness required to dress up like that and act like that.
    “- Here’s a gold broderied tent and a silly gigantic metal hat that you are supposed to wear. And a couple of sticks for you to hold on to while you sit in your ridiculous chair-like piece of furniture.
    – Yeah, sure fat chance, liksom!”

    That’s why the republic was invented. Electing kings instead of just having them inbreed their strange rituals. It might not always turn out very well, but it is always better than this!

  • wayne

    LocalFluff–
    “Mentally Ill, as the day is long.”

    Game of Thrones – The Hound (Chicken Scene)
    https://youtu.be/KtCsmSMRiC0
    (1:31)

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