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Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

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:

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5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.

An up and down Sun

close-up

Late last week NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center released its monthly update of the ongoing solar cycle sunspot activity, covering February 2012. Though I am slightly late in posting it, as I do every month, you can now see the full graph below the fold. I have also created a close-up of the graph’s relevant area, shown on the left, because it is hard to decipher what is happening on the full graph.

Since the Sun began it ramp up to solar maximum back in 2009, the pattern has been consistent, two steps forward, one step back. First there are several months in a row in which the number of sunspots show a steep rise, followed immediately by several months in which the sunspot numbers decline just as steeply, though by not as much. All told, since 2009 we have seen this pattern repeat four times.

February’s numbers have continued that pattern.
» Read more

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 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.

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 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

Playing hardball

The director of Russia’s manned program told the press today that the Russians do not have that a signed contract with NASA to fly astronauts to ISS after 2015, despite NASA’s announcement that such an agreement exists.

If true, NASA’s management has committed a very serious error which will cost the U.S. a great deal of money in the coming years, especially if there are significant delays in getting the new commercial companies online to provide the U.S. an American capability for ferrying humans to orbit.
» Read more

Leaving Earth cover

There are now only 3 copies left of the now out-of-print hardback of Leaving Earth. The price for an autographed copy of this rare collector's item is now $150 (plus $5 shipping).

 

To get your copy while the getting is good, please send a $155 check (which includes $5 shipping) payable to Robert Zimmerman to
 

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

 

Leaving Earth is also available as an inexpensive ebook!

 

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

A Thank You From Japan

One year ago today Japan was hit with one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded history, followed almost immediately by one of the most powerful tsunamis in recorded history. Since then, that nation and its people have done an incredible job recovering from that disaster, proving once again that there really is no limit to what humans can do.

The video below is their thank you to the rest of the world for the help and support brought to Japan by people everywhere. As they say, “Arigato.”

I say, bless you all for never giving up.

The spaceship companies in Mohave are hiring

Want a job building spaceships? The spaceship companies in Mohave are hiring.

There are several hundred open positions in Mojave as companies such as the Spaceship Company, XCOR and Scaled Composites begin to ramp up operations. “It’s ironic that we’re having a recruitment problem in Mojave,” said Stu Witt, CEO and general manager of the Mojave Air and Space Port. He added that this is a good problem to have.

A new bill in Congress would clarify the rights of 1960s astronauts to the space-flown artifacts they took home after their flight.

A new bill in Congress would clarify the rights of 1960s astronauts to the space-flown artifacts they took home after their flight.

What I don’t like about this is that it is so specific, only protecting the rights of the astronauts from the 1960s. Why not extend these rights to all those who fly on NASA missions?

In the Oklahoma primary last week Barack Obama only garnered 57% of the vote, and actually lost in 15 counties, 12 to a pro-life activist and 3 to a state’s Democratic senate candidate from 2010.

What does this tell us? In the Oklahoma primary last week Barack Obama only garnered 57% of the vote, and actually lost in 15 counties, 12 to a pro-life activist and 3 to a state’s Democratic senate candidate from 2010.

What it tells me is that there is a much stronger upwelling of hostility to Obama than anyone in the political world right now imagines. Granted, this is Oklahoma, a very conservative state. Nonetheless, for a sitting President to do this poorly among voters in his own party does not bode well for that President — or his party — come November.

Two Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would repeal the indefinite detention of Americans authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that was passed in November.

Good for them: Two Democratic senators have introduced legislation that would repeal the indefinite detention of Americans authorized by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that was passed in November.

My only complaint is this: Why did these same two senators, along with 81 other senators and 283 House members vote for this unconstitutional obscenity in the first place?

The Senate’s tea party caucus has introduced a budget plan aimed at balancing the federal budget by 2017.

The Senate’s tea party caucus yesterday proposed a budget plan aimed at balancing the federal budget by 2017.

The news article gives a broad outline of the plan, including some basic changes to several entitlement programs, a freezing of government spending at 2008 levels, and the elimination of four government agencies and the privatization of the TSA. A detailed look will probably find that some of these proposals are poorly thought out or impractical. However, at least these senators are proposing something, unlike the Democrats, who in the Senate have not even introduced a budget for more than three years.

smaller planets are preferentially found in low-eccentricity orbits.

More Kepler results: From the abstract of a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph website:

The mean eccentricity of the Kepler candidates decreases with decreasing planet size indicating that smaller planets are preferentially found in low-eccentricity orbits.

In other words, the smaller a planet is, the more likely its orbit will be circular like the Earth’s. This result is encouraging news for the search for life on other worlds. Before Kepler, astronomers had found that the orbits of most exoplanets were far more eccentric than the orbits of the planets in our solar system, a condition that scientists thought was unfriendly for the development of life. These new results counter that conclusion. The orbits of the planets in our solar system might not be as unusual as first thought.

Santorum and Freedom

Santorum and freedom.

People could live with big. It’s too big that’s getting to them. Under the Obama presidency, something outside the norm happened. Amid ObamaCare, Dodd-Frank, the $800 billion stimulus injection and a federal spending boom, something snapped in the steady-state relationship between many citizens and Washington. A lot of people feel the government, finally, is really starting to crowd them. It has made them uneasy. For the Santorum audience, the call-and-response word to push back against the unease is “freedom.”

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