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, 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 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

Yellowstone caldara rise has slowed

1:45 pm

In a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters of the American Geophysical Union, scientists note that the rise of giant volcanic caldara under Yellowstone National Park has slowed significantly since 2006 and since 2008 has actually subsided somewhat. Key quote from the paper:

Here we propose that as the caldera source continues inflating, the accumulated strain energy in the deformed crust could promote earthquakes with mechanisms such as hydrofracturing,, migration of magmatic fluids, and brittle fracturing of rocks. These events can subsequently depressurize the magmatic systems or release the accumulated strain energy, slowing the uplift or even influencing a change in motion to subsidence. In January 2010 the Yellowstone caldera experienced another large earthquake swarm at its northwestern boundary close to the location of the 1985 swarm. . . . In the following five months the caldera experienced the first overall subsidence since the inception of its uplift in 2004. This scenario is similar to that in 1985 where a reverse of caldera uplift to subsidence was temporally correlated with the largest observed Yellowstone earthquake swarm.

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‘A million climate change deaths each year’

12:02 am

Global warming activists today released a report claiming there will be “a million climate change deaths each year” by 2030.

Wanna bet? This article from AFP is typical of what I call press release journalism. The unnamed author shows no skepticism, and simply regurgitates what these activists told him without question. I for one would love to see this so-called report, as I suspect it has more scientific holes than a hunk of swiss cheese.

Update: I just did a quick scan of this so-called “peer-reviewed” report, and it is a piece of junk. (You can see the report’s press release here. The report can be downloaded here [pdf]) Its data is compiled from UN political workshops, not scientific research. Moreover, it uses the 2007 IPCC report as its fundamental source, even quoting some of that report’s now discredited research, such as its claim that the glaciers in the Himalayas will be gone in mere decades.

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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black., You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:


1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.


2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.


3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:


4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to:


Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652


You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.

Orlando Sentinel calls for more NASA funding

11:47 pm

The squealing continues! The Orlando Sentinel demands that NASA gets its funding over everyone else, even as they admit there really is no money for anything. Key quote:

We applaud the Republicans’ determination to cut federal spending. But surely there are riper targets than the space program. The federal government spends billions each year on farm subsidies, a program held over from the Great Depression.

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Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. All editions can also be purchased direct from the ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from the author (hardback $29.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $6.00). Just send an email to zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

Leaving Earth cover

Leaving Earth: Space Stations, Rival Superpowers, and the Quest for Interplanetary Travel, can be purchased as an ebook everywhere for only $3.99 (before discount) at amazon, Barnes & Noble, all ebook vendors, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.

 

If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big oppressive tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Winner of the 2003 Eugene M. Emme Award of the American Astronautical Society.

 
"Leaving Earth is one of the best and certainly the most comprehensive summary of our drive into space that I have ever read. It will be invaluable to future scholars because it will tell them how the next chapter of human history opened." -- Arthur C. Clarke

Snowbound England

3:24 pm

Images of a snowbound England.

I know it’s weather and not climate, but Europe is experiencing its second cold winter in a row, despite predictions by many in the global warming community that such things would never happen again. My point here is that their claims in the late 1990s that hot streaks and big storms were proof of global warming were patently dishonest, and it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of this fact.

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White House wants transfer authority on appropriations?

2:15 pm

This must not happen! There are hints that the White House is asking the lame-duck Congress for the authority to transfer appropriations from one account to another, without Congressional approval. As Ed Morrissey notes

[This request] all but demands a blank check from Congress as a budget plan and ends their ability to direct funding as it sees fit. It’s a carte blanche for runaway executive power. Senate Republicans must pledge to filibuster any budget with that kind of authority built into it. In fact, every member of Congress should protest this demand to surrender the Constitutional prerogative of budgeting and the check on power it represents. Otherwise, they will consign the people’s branch to a mere rubber stamp for executive whims.

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SpaceX to offer NASA its own plans for a heavy-lift rocket

10:02 am

SpaceX is putting together its own plans to provide NASA a heavy-lift rocket. Key quote:

Fast-track development, multi-use and low cost are key, says [SpaceX owner Elon] Musk. “The development timeframe is on the order of five years and would come to fruition before Obama’s likely second term ends. It has got to fit within a NASA budget that fits in 2008 levels, and it’s got to have operational costs when functioning that is as close to zero as you can make it. That latter point demands that whatever components are in use for super-heavy lift must be in use for launching other satellites for say, geostationary commercial and government customers. If not, then the likelihood of success in my opinion is zero.”

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X-37B has returned successful to earth

9:34 am

After more than seven months in orbit, the unmanned X-37B space plan has successfully returned to Earth. Key quote:

“Boeing and the Air Force are building another X-37B vehicle scheduled for launch in the spring of 2011.”

Update: Since several different reports are listing slightly different totals for the number of days in orbit, I’ve edited my note above to be less precise. I could add up the days myself, but that involves more math than I prefer to do!

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More caves on Mars

8:15 pm

And damn, do I want to rappel into them!

This week’s release of images from the HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter included these spectacular photos of two deep pits, approximately 180 and 310 meters in diameter and located aligned with a series of depressions that suggest additional passages at their base.

The first image shows the pits in the context of the surrounding terrain. From the caption:

These pits are aligned with what appears to be larger, degraded depressions. The wispy deposit may consist of dark material that has been either blown out of the pits or from some other source and scattered about by the local winds.

wide shot of pits

The next two images are heavily processed close-ups of each pit in order to bring out the detail within. From the caption:

The eastern most and smaller of the two pits contains boulders and sediment along its walls and brighter aeolian dune sediments on its floor. The larger, western most pit contains sediment and boulders with faint dune-like patterns visible on the deepest part of the floor. Both pits have steep eastern walls and more gently sloped western walls that transition gradually into the pit floor. Steep resistant ledges containing boulders that overhang and obscure the pit floors form the eastern walls.

The smaller pit, with dunes on floor

The larger pit

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The next to go — astronauts!

3:34 pm

White House initiates a study on whether astronaut corps should be trimmed.

This story is more evidence that I was right when I said Obama was lying when he claimed he loved manned spaceflight. If he was serious about sending humans to asteroids and beyond, he wouldn’t be so eager to find ways to shrink the astronaut corp.

Update: I should emphasize that I am not criticizing the idea of trimming the astronaut corp. I just want it clear that Barack Obama is clearly not a supporter of manned space, and that I believe his proposals (the commercial space subsidies) are merely window-dressing to placate his opponents while he dismantles the program.

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When journalism runs wild…

2:20 pm

A commenter to one of my other posts, ZZMike, asked this question today: ” What is NASA’s Secret Astrobiology Announcement?” and quoted this from another website, “Science fans across the Internet are eagerly awaiting an announcement from NASA’s astrobiology team. All NASA will say about the press conference is that it will “discuss an astrobiology finding that will impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.”

Unfortunately, Mike, this great discovery is not the big news that everyone is hoping for, such as the discovery of life on Mars. Instead, it is about the discovery that a certain microbe can eat and digest arsenic, using it as one of the six vital basic components of life (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, phosphorus) in place of phosphorus. This is very significant since it tells us that alien life could very well be far more alien than previously imagined.

What makes this story interesting, however, is not the discovery itself (which is important). Instead, because NASA was so vague in its press announcement it allowed a large number of irresponsible reporters and bloggers to go nuts trying to guess what the story was about. When these rumors began to get out of control, the magazine Science finally sent out a notice to journalists noting the specific paper and discovery so that they at least would know in advance what the conference was about.

As Mike above as well as several other people noted to me in emails, I had written nothing about this story on behindtheblack. This was intentional. Without knowing what the conference was about, I wasn’t going to speculate about it. Once I knew, I still remained silent because the story was under embargo by Science and I respect these embargos. Now that the embargo has been lifted, I can speak.

What I want to speak about is the danger of speculation, especially among journalists. This is a serious problem today. Too often journalists speculate off the cuff, without knowing a goddamn thing about the subject, And all too often, they are downright wrong, and help contribute to misinforming the public. The result: the field of journalism has a terrible reputation with the public. No one trusts what journalists tell us. Worse, this lack of trust is helping fuel the ignorance and anger that seems to be rising in society, as no one knows what to believe about some of the most important issues of our time.

Journalists need to stop doing this. Rather than fantasize what they don’t know, journalists need to focus on what they do know. If they do that, they will significantly help repair the sagging reputation of their field.

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