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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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Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire

An evening pause: Performed live at the Temple of Olympian Zeus in Athens on June 28, 2001.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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

5 comments

  • Ted

    One of the best movies ever produced. What a great story, what a great contrast between two amazing men and the team that supported them. The music was unreal -especially the first beach scene. Thank for the memories!

  • Andrew

    Well now…

    I have this on vinyl. And, while it is a nice piece of music, and it is kind of cool that it’s played in Greece Vangelis’ home. The piece itself is not all that much to write home about. What made this thing famous, and worth buying the Vinyl for is that it was not originally played by a full orchestra. Here,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chariots_of_Fire_(album)

    As noted in this wiki article, and why I bought the album in the first place, is that this entire thing was composed, and recorded by ONE MAN. It was one of the very FIRST times a Music Synthesizer,

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_CS-80

    to compose a complete symphonic piece.

    As, literally, a one-man-band performance Chariot’s of Fire was, and remains a fantastic achievement for an age that did not have Desktop PCs. It was the technical achievement that made it great, not the actual composition.

    Sorry to burst bubbles but. . . .

  • wayne

    Edward-
    Excellent choice!

    Not to diminish your selection, but I must shill for this Gem from Jon & Vangelis, as well. (circa 1980/81, if memory serves.)
    The AM cut was only 4-5 minutes, but the FM album-version was 12 minutes long.

    Jon and Vangelis –
    “The Friends of Mr. Cairo”
    https://youtu.be/Y_PBU9a8FQY
    (12:10)

    “Sam Spade his buddy Archer first to go, he got it– he dead.
    She spelt it out, how could they know that Fatman got it– he dead.
    Her Sister didn’t really live at all, confusion — he dead.
    His chase led to the Fatman,
    to face the friends of Mr. Cairo….”

  • Joe

    Edward, great selection, enjoyed!
    Wayne, I could listen to a whole series of that, shades of radio from the 1930’s!

  • wayne

    The Lady Esther Screen Guild Theater presents:
    “The Maltese Falcon”
    -Radio dramatization from 09-20-1943
    Bogart, Astor, Lorre, and Greenstreet reprise their roles.
    (29:30)
    https://archive.org/details/TheLadyEstherScreenGuildTheater430920TheMalteseFalcon

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