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.
"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
China’s first space station module, Tiangong-1, has been shipped to the launchpad for final checkout, in preparation for its launch later this year.
Thank the gods for climategate.
We are certainly in a far different world vis-a-vis global warming than 21 months ago. The [global warming] climatologists are, to a very large extent, being ignored. Yes, there is an IPCC coming up, and perhaps we should wait until that is over. But I will predict that no matter what hoohah comes out of it, it will not have 50% of the energy of the previous IPCCs, because governments just aren’t listening with baited breath anymore. If there is any place where the mojo counted, it was with governments. But it ain’t there any more.
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.
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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.
“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.
Science discovers the obvious: Government agencies are routinely over-optimistic in their budget forecasts. From the abstract:
The paper studies forecasts of real growth rates and budget balances made by official government agencies among 33 countries. In general, the forecasts are found:
- to have a positive average bias
- to be more biased in booms
- to be even more biased at the 3-year horizon than at shorter horizons.
This over-optimism in official forecasts can help explain excessive budget deficits, especially the failure to run surpluses during periods of high output: if a boom is forecasted to last indefinitely, retrenchment is treated as unnecessary. Many believe that better fiscal policy can be obtained by means of rules such as ceilings for the deficit or, better yet, the structural deficit. But we also find [that] countries subject to a budget rule, in the form of euroland’s Stability and Growth Path, make official forecasts of growth and budget deficits that are even more biased and more correlated with booms than do other countries. [emphasis mine]
In related news, it is now more than 800 days since the Democratically-controlled Senate has passed or even proposed a budget, as they are required to do by law.
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.
"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
In a piece today at the Huffington Post, science journalist Seth Borenstein declares the wonders of NASA’s next mission: to send astronauts to an asteroid by 2025, as declared by President Obama.
If you believe this is going to happen, then I have a bridge I want to sell you. To do it we need a spaceship in which people can live for at least a year, and a rocket to get that ship into orbit. Not only do we not yet know how to build such a spaceship, we no longer have the capability of putting it into orbit. In case you’re unaware (Borenstein acts like he is), the space shuttle no longer exists. And under this administration and Congress, any replacement we get isn’t going to be able to launch such an interplanetary spaceship anywhere in the near future, especially faced as we are with the present federal debt.
The disgraceful thing about this article, however, is the lack of skepticism shown by Borenstein.
» Read more
The emptiness of the Democratic debt ceiling “plans”.
On Wednesday evening, I noted the absurdity of Associated Press coverage characterizing the 5-page document with 3-1/2 whole pages of text issued by the “Gang of Six” as a “plan” — 12 times, plus in the item’s headline. Though I didn’t bring it up then, an obvious point to make about any of these items floating around Washington is that if the Congressional Budget Office can’t score it, it can’t be a plan. A month ago, CBO Director Doug Elmendorf told a congressional committee, in response to a question about President Obama’s April proposal, that “we can’t score speeches.”
And then there’s this:
Obama … claimed to have a $4 trillion deficit-reduction plan. The court eunuchs of the press corps were impressed, and went off to file pieces hailing the president as “the grown-up in the room.” There is, in fact, no plan. No plan at all. No plan whatsoever, either for a deficit reduction of $4 trillion or $4.73. As is the way in Washington, merely announcing that he had a plan absolved him of the need to have one. So the president’s staff got out the extra-wide teleprompter and wrote a really large number on it, and simply by reading out the really large number the president was deemed to have produced a serious blueprint for trillions of dollars in savings. For his next trick, he’ll walk out on to the stage of Carnegie Hall, announce that he’s going to play Haydn’s Cello Concerto No 2, and, even though there’s no cello in sight, and Obama immediately climbs back in his golf cart to head for the links, music critics will hail it as one of the most moving performances they’ve ever heard.
The only “plan” Barack Obama has put on paper is his February budget. Were there trillions and trillions of savings in that? Er, no. It increased spending and doubled the federal debt.
Repeal it! An Obamacare provision appears to force middle-class families to either buy unaffordable healthcare or pay the penalty for going without.
I wrote “appears to force” above because the issue at hand is so complex I don’t think anyone either in or out of the Obama administration truly understands it, another indication that the healthcare law is a disaster that needs to be ceremoniously dumped, and as quickly as possible.
A public test of privately built moon lander has been delayed by gyro problem. Key quote:
One customer has already bought a ticket with Moon Express, asking them to deposit a small telescope on the dark side of the Moon. Jain says the company will also offer low cost ways for anyone to use the moon as a kind of time capsule. “If something goes to the moon it stays there forever, people will pay to sends things like photos, or maybe your hair or DNA.”
An evening pause: The rope work makes me cringe and some of the narration is a bit over the top, but the camerawork is superb, giving you a real feel of what it is like to visit this unique place.
Turf war: At conference yesterday at the Johnson Space Center, NASA proposed changing how it issues its commercial space contracts so as to give it more control over their design and construction. The commercial companies are not happy.
Brett Alexander, a space industry consultant who counts among his clients the secretive aerospace startup Blue Origin of Kent, Wash., said at the July 20 briefing that industry needs to know NASA’s legal reasoning for dismissing SAAs as an option for the next CCDev round. “From an industry standpoint … we’re kind of flying blind because [NASA] has not divulged what its legal reasoning is, and I think they need to do that in writing. Not a couple charts, not things that you brief, but a legal brief that says ‘here’s why’” a traditional procurement is necessary.
My own sources say this change in contractual approach will significantly slow development of the new commercial manned space rockets and ships, possibly beyond 2017.
The only reason I can see for NASA to do this is to maintain control over manned space, even if they are not building anything. I think NASA is instead going to find out that doing anything to slow this development will be politically very dangerous for them.
Not good: House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has broken off negotiations with President Obama over the debt ceiling.
“A deal was never reached and was never really close,” Boehner wrote. “I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward.” Boehner blamed Obama’s demand for higher taxes and opposition to “fundamental changes” to entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.
The important thing to note here is that so far only the Republicans have put forth any specific plan. It might not have been perfect but at least it was something. And the Democrats have rejected it, without offering any detailed counteroffer.
The delay until early next year of the first Taurus 2/Cygnus launch was in order to install required launchpad upgrades.
Clark Lindsey has put together a very succinct but thorough summary of the present and future state of American manned space.
The bottom line is that the U.S. can easily have multiple rockets and spaceships to put people into space, in only a few short years, if only our government will get out of the way.
We’re here to help you: A fourth video was released today, showing the incredible willingness of Medicare employees to support drug smuggling, prostitution, and a host of other illegal activities in their effort to get applicants approved.
The first video was for me the most damaging — and sadly hilarious — with the government employee telling the so-called Russian drug smuggler and pimp for under-age prostitutes to put “baby-sitting” on his application instead.
The Messenger spacecraft has now been in orbit around Mercury since the end of March, almost four months. During that time the probe has sent back many fascinating images, showcasing a hot, alien planet whose surface was formed by impacts, volcanic activity, and some processes that no one as yet understands.
Most of the released images, however, have been in black and white, which at first glance makes one think that Mercury is not unlike the Moon. This week the Messenger team released a color image, demonstrated clearly how false this assumption is. The image below shows two very different craters, a dark-haloed crater named Basho at the bottom left of the image, and a very bright crater, Kalidasa crater, near the top left. On the right of the image is a dark haloed Tolstoj basin. For an uncropped full resolution version go here.
So what’s their plan? The Democrats in the Senate today rejected the House Republican debt ceiling plan.
Meanwhile, poll data says that the public is afraid that any deal will raise taxes too much and not cut enough.
Voters are worried more that Congress and President Obama will raise taxes too much rather than too little in any deal to end the debt ceiling debate. Just 26% fear they’ll raise taxes too little. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure. Similarly, 56% worry that Congress and the president will cut spending too little in the final debt ceiling deal, while only 25% are concerned that they will cut spending too much. Nineteen percent (19%) are undecided.
This quote is even more telling:
There’s a wide difference of opinion, however, between the Political Class and Mainstream voters. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of the Political Class is worried the deal will cut spending too much, while 63% of Mainstream voters fear it won’t cut spending enough. Those in the Mainstream worry more than Political Class voters by a near two-to-one margin – 70% to 37% – that the debt deal also will raise taxes too much.
The next Mars rover will land at Gale Crater.
The car-sized Mars Science Laboratory, or Curiosity, is scheduled to launch late this year and land in August 2012. The target crater spans 96 miles (154 kilometers) in diameter and holds a mountain rising higher from the crater floor than Mount Rainier rises above Seattle. Gale is about the combined area of Connecticut and Rhode Island. Layering in the mound suggests it is the surviving remnant of an extensive sequence of deposits. The crater is named for Australian astronomer Walter F. Gale. . . . The portion of the crater where Curiosity will land has an alluvial fan likely formed by water-carried sediments. The layers at the base of the mountain contain clays and sulfates, both known to form in water.
More here, including images of landing site.
Via Clark Lindsey: Orbital Sciences has announced an updated launch schedule for its cargo ship and rocket for supplying ISS.
The first test flight of Taurus II is set for late this year, with the first flight of the Cygnus cargo ship set for the first quarter of 2012.
