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

Four times a year 80 Chinese children walk to school by scaling 1000 ft cliffs and fording swollen rivers

5:23 pm

Who says it was tougher in the old days? Four times a year eighty Chinese children walk two days to school by traversing 1000 ft cliffs and fording swollen rivers.

The most dangerous part of the route is a path, which narrows to just a few inches wide, that has been cut into a cliff face some 1,000ft above the valley beneath. Without safety harnesses, the teachers gingerly shepherd their charges along. Further along, there are four freezing rivers to wade across, a 600ft-long zip-line to slide down, and bridges that are just a single plank wide. Teachers often carry the younger children on their backs, but some have fallen in the rivers in the past, without serious injury.

Leave a comment

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:

4. A Paypal subscription:


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.

Violence and oppression from the left

12:47 pm

Two stories today clearly illustrate the oppressive nature of the left. They don’t wish to debate and persuade. They want to impose their will on the rest of us, by force if necessary.

First there’s this: Occupy Wall Street has paid the bail for the OWS demonstrator who threatened to burn down New York and throw Molotov cocktails into the windows at Macy’s.

A week ago he wanted to toss Molotov cocktails at Macy’s, but Tuesday he was back at it, mixing it up in Zuccotti Park. The Daily News snapped photos of Occupy Wall Street nut case Nkrumah Tinsley, 29, prancing around after the movement coughed up $7,500 for his bail, his lawyer, Pierre Sussman said.

One of their demonstrators publicly admits he wants to destroy property and commit violence, and the OWS movement backs him to the hilt.

Then there’s this story:
» Read more

4 comments

India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks

9:40 am

India pushes for a sharing of intellectual property rights at Durban climate talks.

If you ever had any doubts about the political goals behind the global warming movement, this headline and story should put those forever to rest. The advocates of climate change really don’t care about climate change. What they really want is to get their hands on other people’s success. Failing to get a deal that would limit the activities of the developed countries so that the developing countries would have an advantage in the free market, the effort is now aimed at attacking and even eliminating the property rights of private technology companies. What this has to do with climate change is beyond me.

That India is leading the way here is puzzling, however, as that country’s economic success in the past decade is solely due to its abandonment of communist ideals in favor of capitalism and the free market. You would think, with that experience, that India’s government would thus understand the importance of protecting property rights, not violating them.

Leave a comment

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.

Training space tourists for their suborbital flight

9:13 am

Training space tourists for their suborbital flight.

In the NASTAR Center’s Observation Lounge, trainees can watch the centrifuge through a large window, as well as see a live video feed of its rider. Meanwhile, Henwood iterates the importance of the correct timing of breaths. “If you’re going to need it, you’re going to want to do it right.” Failing to begin the manoeuvre before the onset of the g’s can result in loss of consciousness.

“You’ll tell me when to breathe?” the first flier of the course says over the intercom to Greg Kennedy, NASTAR Center’s director of educational services and the monitor of participants’ in-flight safety.

“Yes,” Kennedy says. “Are you ready for your flight?”

Leave a comment

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

The Kennedy assassination

6:01 pm

An evening pause: On this date, forty-eight years ago, I was ten years old, home sick with a cold instead of at school. As I watched a silly afternoon rerun of a 1950s comedy sitcom (I don’t even remember what show it was) and sipped chicken soup (of course), the show was interrupted with the news of Kennedy’s assassination.

For each generation, there is often a single moment that defines their future. For the baby boomer generation, it probably was this moment more than any other.

One comment

Space Show 2011 fundraising campaign

2:16 pm

David Livingston of the Space Show has begun his 2011 fundraising campaign. As someone who has both listened to his show for much needed information about the state of space exploration as well as appeared on the show numerous times since 2003, I can say it is one of the best sources of information about the aerospace industry. If you can spare some money, please spare it for David.

And while I am on a fundraising kick, I might mention that if you like what I do here on Behind the Black, you might also consider giving us a tip as well. There is a donation link on the bottom of the right column, just below the search feature. You can donate what you want, or even agree to regular donations. And let me thank you in advance, for anything anyone wants to give.

May everyone have a wonderful Thanksgiving this week.

One comment

An especially dark and pessimistic interpretation of Obama

1:40 pm

An especially dark and pessimistic interpretation of Obama.

This dark reality that confronts us is prefigured in our Declaration of Independence which alludes to the causes of the first American Revolution when it notes, in passing, “when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design.”

To break this down I note that the recent abuses of power and the usurpations of governing traditions must now be seen as a “long train.” Surely in the last two years we have seen many such abuses and usurpations from the appointment of czars and the subsequent stacking of the employee decks at all government departments, the endless acts of stealth reparations, the budgeting and legislation that continually increases indebtedness and hence the bonded servitude of present and future generations of productive citizens, the twisted department of selective justice that is wholly devoted to the protection and enhancement of the rights of the “government-driven classes” at the expense of a color-blind enforcement of the law. All of these, and many others, can be seen to pursue “invariably the same Object;” the wholesale destruction of the United States to such a degree that a few more years of the same will make a recovery exceedingly difficult even as it it opens the country to further attacks from within and without. Taken all in all, it amounts to something that, arising not from an “administration” but from the ego of one man, “evinces a design.”

The recent adventure into Libya, or shall I say ‘above Libya,’ is the first time in living memory we’ve seen the will of one man, even an American president, order and carry out an American military mission without even bothering to ask the American congress if it minds his messing about in a foreign country. In essence, one man in one day set in motion the power of the American military without any of the barest of rituals that normally come before. For conservatives to say that he is unfit to be Commander-in-Chief is to miss the point that he is much more a commander now than he was a week ago.

And though I pray this is wrong, honesty requires that we consider it possible. Read the whole thing.

One comment

‘Perfect black’ coating can render a 3D object flat, raises intriguing dark veil possibility in astronomy

12:27 pm

A newly developed “perfect black” coating can render a 3D object flat, which raises an intriguing dark veil possibility in astronomy.

“The carbon nanotube forest can absorb very wide range of electromagnetic wave from ultraviolet up to terahertz,” Guo said, “and in principle it can be applied to an arbitrary sized object.” Just how large an object? Guo suggested an intriguing possibility—perhaps entire planets or even stars. “Since deep space itself is a perfect dark background, if a planet or star were surrounded by a thick, sooty atmosphere of light-absorbing carbon nanomaterial gases, it would become invisible due to the same principle,” Guo said. “It would become totally dark to our instruments that rely on the detection of electromagnetic waves.”

Leave a comment

Climategate 2

12:08 pm

Having failed to clean up its act after the release of the climategate emails two years ago, the field of climate science is about to turned upside down all over again. Today there was another release of hacked emails, written by the same collection of global warming scientists. Once again, these emails show that these scientists are anything but scientists. Instead, they seem far more interested in campaigning for a certain result, regardless of the science. A few quotes:
» Read more

14 comments

A new batch of hacked climategate emails have been released

10:17 am

A new batch of hacked climategate emails have been released. More info, including some examples from the emails, can be found here and here.

Update: A quick scan by me of these, hardly finished, reveals this one email from Phil Jones, demonstrating beyond doubt how much fraud is involved in climate science:

Basic problem is that all models are wrong – not got enough middle and low level clouds.

Stay tuned for more bombshells.

Leave a comment

Supercommittee gives up

8:38 pm

The day of reckoning looms: The Congressional supercommittee has given up. The perspective of one member of the committee can be read here. Key quote:

The Congressional Budget Office, the Medicare trustees, and the Government Accountability Office have each repeatedly said that our health-care entitlements are unsustainable. Committee Democrats offered modest adjustments to these programs, but they were far from sufficient to meet the challenge. And even their modest changes were made contingent upon a minimum of $1 trillion in higher taxes—a move sure to stifle job creation during the worst economy in recent memory.

Even if Republicans agreed to every tax increase desired by the president, our national debt would continue to grow uncontrollably. Controlling spending is therefore a crucial challenge. The other is economic growth and job creation, which would produce the necessary revenue to fund our priorities. [emphasis mine]

This needs repeating: regardless of whether you think we should raise taxes in this situation, no tax increase can eliminate the deficit. The problem is out-of-control spending that needs to be seriously curbed.

One comment

The Pilgrims arrive in New England

6:01 pm

An evening pause: Three hundred and ninety one years ago on this day the Pilgrims first sighted the shore of New England. Knowing that they soon would disembark and attempt to create a new society in this New World, they gathered and signed what we today call the Mayflower Compact, what might be called the first ever consciously written social contract in human history.

Having undertaken, for the glory of God, and advancement of the Christian faith, and honor of our King and Country, a voyage to plant the first colony in the northern parts of Virginia, do by these presents solemnly and mutually, in the presence of God, and one of another, covenant and combine our selves together into a civil body politic, for our better ordering and preservation and furtherance of the ends aforesaid; and by virtue hereof to enact, constitute, and frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, acts, constitutions and offices, from time to time, as shall be thought most meet and convenient for the general good of the Colony, unto which we promise all due submission and obedience.

This idea, that society is formed from the consent of its members, still forms the bedrock idea of America. And woe to us if we ever forget it.

Leave a comment

The case against SpaceX

9:38 am

The case against SpaceX. From one of the company’s biggest supporters.

Trent Waddington raises many good points, all of which must be considered to have a clear, educated sense of where the future stands for American manned spaceflight. Two quotes:

The goal of SpaceX is human spaceflight, and the greatest repository of knowledge about human spaceflight is NASA. As such, it would appear obvious that getting NASA to help you to fly humans safely is a good idea. The way to do that is with Space Act Agreements. This is what SpaceX did under the COTS program, and later under the CCDev program.. and they got paid for the privilege. As a result, the Dragon spacecraft will soon be fully qualified as safe for human habitation on orbit as it will be berthed to the ISS and have astronauts inside it.

The problem is that NASA is a precocious customer. They know what they want, they think they know even better than you do how to make it, and they feel no guilt about changing their mind halfway through the project. As such, Space Act Agreements just totally grind NASA’s gears. They don’t have enough control. [emphasis in original]

NASA money is like heroin.. once they start taking it, most people find it very hard to stop. There’s a dependence that has grown between NASA and SpaceX, and although it is obviously a love-hate relationship, it’s going to be very hard for SpaceX to let go.. but, inevitably, they must. The current needs of NASA are very different to the long term goals of SpaceX.

And this:

Fundamentally, SpaceX has a shoddy business case which is best described as a house of cards.. that they’re still trying to play poker with.. and there’s dogs at the table, and they’re smoking cigars! Yeah, metaphor.

Read the whole thing. It’s quite good.

Leave a comment
1 … 913 914 915 916 917 … 1,060