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[Spaceflight History Blog] Pardon Our Dust
« dnia: Marzec 04, 2017, 23:53 »
Pardon Our Dust
02 March 2015



This is the new home (and new name) of my spaceflight history blog Beyond Apollo. After three years with WIRED, it's time to try new things. I want to have a go at crowdfunding this blog. Please stay tuned for further developments!

Posted by David S. F. Portree at 5:14 PM

Source: Pardon Our Dust
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Welcome Back
28 May 2016 David S. F. Portree


Image credit: Boeing/NASA

Back in March, I was very close to abandoning this blog, having grown tired of seeing my work used by others in various ways without even a nod in my direction. I stated as much in a whiny post (now deleted; it served its purpose) and was surprised when readers responded with helpful suggestions and kind encouragement. For that, I thank you.

I kept your comments. I intend to refer to them as this blog moves forward.

Your kind words plus the vacation from writing seem to have done the trick; I'm at work now on a post taking in two advanced propulsion studies, one from 1997 and the other from 2001. It also features the film and book versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey. I think it will be a fun post. Please watch for it in the days ahead.

Many of you offered to contribute funds to support this blog. I might take you up on that eventually, but for now I think it best that I prove that I am going to keep on posting regularly.

The sheer volume of spaceflight history remaining to be explored is daunting. I could write a new post every day for the next decade and just scratch the surface.

Enough procrastination. There are important stories waiting to be told.

Source: Welcome Back

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Thirty Years of Space Outreach
21 June 2017 David S. F. Portree


Staffing the tables at Flagstaff's annual Science in the Park event, September 2012. Image credit: Lisa Gaddis

The first satellite, Sputnik 1, reached Earth orbit in 1957, and in 1987 NASA was recovering from the Challenger accident while the Soviet Union added to the newly launched Mir space station Kvant, its first add-on module. Three decades separated these events.

I think about that eventful 30-year span when I want to feel ancient. In 1987, I began my first paid space outreach project. Now it's 2017, 30 years on. Throughout that 30-year period, I've always had some paid space outreach activity under way: a full-time job in a planetarium; a freelance museum writing project; a Summer Fellowship aimed at researching, recording, and writing radio programs; an article assignment for a magazine; writing press releases as part of a NASA term civil service appointment; visiting classrooms as part of a science institution's outreach efforts; mentoring NASA Space Grant Interns; a book project - you name it. Typically, I've had several projects aimed at "selling" spaceflight going on at once.

My first paid spaceflight outreach work was a magazine article in which I called on people interested in space to organize and interact with people with no interest in space. Break out of the space "fandom" and share the thrill of space exploration, in other words. I think I received $50 for the article. At the time I wrote it, I was finishing my graduate degree in History in the aptly named town of Normal, Illinois.

Thirty years on, I work for the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. I am a U.S. government employee working alongside and providing operational support to planetary scientists and cartographers. I'm mainly an archivist and map librarian, but I also maintain our exhibits and give tours. Yesterday I received a 10-year service pin; tomorrow I'll show 42 teachers from 20 U.S. states around our facility. I can hardly wait.

The biggest turning point in my peripatetic career was the call I received from NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in May 1992. At the time I was freelance writing and presenting planetarium shows. The call came as a shock since I had not answered any sort of job solicitation.

It turned out that the deputy director of a part of JSC responsible for their History Office had asked her husband's best friend's brother, who was one of my editors, to recommend someone for a job that was to be part publications, part "stealth History Office" archivist. JSC management in its wisdom had decided to close the History Office, but there were dissenters. I was flown down to Houston for an interview in July, and on 10 August 1992, I became part of their devious plot to keep the invaluable JSC History collections intact.

Eventually, the pendulum swung back; a new JSC Director wanted to do a big oral history project. When those employed to carry it out went looking for documents to enable them to research the careers of the people they meant to interview, the folks who'd hired me magically produced a history collection out of thin air.

By then, I'd moved on, launching a freelance writing career that lasted a dozen years. I'd be at it yet today, had it not been for a terrible personal tragedy 10 years ago. A sleeping driver rammed my wife's car head-on on the highway a mile or so from our rural Flagstaff home, killing himself, his passengers, and my wife, and gravely injuring our daughter, who was four years old at the time.

The good news is that, despite massive brain damage and seven fractures scattered across her body, she's now a normal teenager, if such a thing exists. If you're going to be nearly killed in a car crash, do it at age four. She routinely earns a place on the Honor Roll. She likes science and writing; next year, in fact, she's taking Honors Science and Honors English.

I sense a pattern emerging. Can science-type writing be inherited?

I've described the kind of paid spaceflight outreach I do today. What of the future?

Raising the Kiddo, contending with the loss of my wife, and working a steady job so our child could have health insurance killed off three book projects I had under way 10 years ago. I want to get back to those. The Kiddo is increasingly self-sufficient, potentially freeing up some of my time for new freelance projects. I have no desire to neglect her even as she becomes more self-sufficient, however.

There's also my status as a U.S. Federal employee to consider. I am bound by ethics rules designed to prevent corruption. These require that any "moonlighting" I do be vetted first by ethics officials to avoid a conflict of interest. I have already had a project vetted and approved, so I am hopeful that I will in the next few years be able to publish a new book - my first since my 2001 NASA-published opus Humans to Mars - Fifty Years of Mission Planning, 1950-2000.

To end this self-serving little anniversary essay, I want to acknowledge the many, many people who have made my adventures in the past 30 years possible. Some of you read this blog; your encouragement and stimulating comments keep it alive. I'll not name names in order to protect the innocent and to avoid forgetting anyone. You know who you are. Thank you, every one of you.

Source: Thirty Years of Space Outreach

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« Odpowiedź #3 dnia: Sierpień 23, 2017, 23:25 »
Doing Spaceflight History the Hard Way
18 April 2015 David S. F. Portree


The moon and Command and Service Module Odyssey (right) as viewed from the Lunar Module Aquarius during Apollo 13. The mission was NASA's third lunar landing attempt and the first Apollo mission aimed at a site selected for its likely contribution to the scientific understanding of the moon. Image credit: NASA

For many people, spaceflight history is really space nostalgia. I have believed this to be true for a long time, and the recent anniversary of Apollo 13 seems to me to confirm this view.

Before I go any further, let me say that I like to celebrate spaceflight. I am a fan of Yuri's Night and belong to a group of long-time space geek pals who without fail exchange greetings on "The Day" (the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing). Spaceflight has been a central part of my life since Apollo 8 orbited the moon when I was six years old.

Spaceflight nostalgia is a residue of early spaceflight propaganda. We are used to celebrating our space achievements, not delving into them. Celebrating the first steps in our endless migration through the cosmos is good and proper, but it is not enough. Only by understanding our space achievements - their origins, the influences that shaped them, their impact on spaceflight today - can we truly appreciate them and give them the consideration that is their due.

About 15 years ago I was involved in a NASA-sponsored project to write a scholarly history of the Shuttle-Mir Program akin to the early classic NASA histories. Those meaty tomes chronicled Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and Skylab. Without those books and the document collections historians amassed to write them, much of the history of those pioneering programs would have been lost. Because they exist, one can, if one desires, dig deeper and learn what made our early space projects tick.

When it became obvious that the people behind the project really wanted a "celebratory" (to use their term) picture book with as little analysis as possible, and that nothing I could say would change that, I quit. By then I had accumulated 11 cartons of primary source documents. Those I handed over; I have no idea what became of them. I do know that the book eventually published did not use them. It constituted a missed opportunity to carefully record for posterity a significant space project.

I like to say that "I do space history the hard way." That's a tongue-in-cheek way of saying that I approach it like a scholar. I am not content to describe a space project in isolation. I nearly always seek to include plenty of social, economic, political, scientific, and technical context. I want to show the bruises and bumps and scars. These often make the victories all the more impressive, though on rare occasions they point up hidden failings and threaten to knock heroes from their pedestals.

Nor am I content to focus on missions and programs that successfully ran the gauntlet and resulted in something being launched into space. I want to know about the many proposals for space missions and programs that didn't make it and, crucially, try to learn why they did not. In my view, they tell the real story of spaceflight.

Least of all am I content to focus only on missions. Many space writers merely rehash the same old heroic tales, adorned, perhaps, with a recent quote from one of the original participants. That is the laziest way to write spaceflight history. I would argue that it really isn't spaceflight history at all. It is space nostalgia through and through.

When I approach Apollo 13, or any mission or program, I look for something new to write about. I dig in the archives for something that indicates a broader context. For example, I wrote about the little-known backup plan that would have taken effect had the Apollo 13 Lunar Module malfunctioned on the way to the moon. The mission would have entered lunar orbit and performed science and landing site selection photography. If its descent engine still functioned, the Lunar Module might have been used to carry out orbital plane changes, enabling close-up photography of otherwise inaccessible lunar surface targets.

I also wrote about an Apollo 13-inspired study of piloted planetary mission aborts. The study, performed mere weeks after Apollo 13 returned safely to Earth, found that a quick return to Earth after a major planetary mission malfunction was impossible unless the abort took place immediately after the spacecraft departed Earth orbit. Beyond that point, return to Earth would need weeks or, more often, months. Adding enough propellants to meaningfully extend the "quick-return" abort period could easily double the mass of the spacecraft, which meant in turn a near-doubling of the number of costly assembly launches.

This kind of historical writing shines a new light on Apollo 13. It shows that engineers recognized the many opportunities that existed for failure during Apollo missions and that they sought to put in place useful alternate mission plans. It also shows how Apollo 13 led to new planetary mission risk analysis (I think of it as the engineering equivalent of soul-searching).

I could go on about other problems associated with space nostalgia - the devaluation of spaceflight archives and primary source documents, the creation of comfortable myths that hide important lessons, the sometimes tragic failure to give credit where credit is due in favor of promoting established myths, the neglect of crucial stepping-stone missions in favor of dramatic culmination missions (why does no one celebrate Apollo 9?), and the general non-recognition of spaceflight history as a legitimate field of study in academia - but I think that I have made my point. "The hard way" is really the only way if we truly care about spaceflight past, present, and future.

Source: Doing Spaceflight History the Hard Way

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My Space Fleet (or, nostalgia concerning missed and lost toy spaceships)
25 November 2017 David S. F. Portree


Major Matt Mason, the moon, and a map. All stuff I've loved since forever. If I'd received this in a Christmas stocking at age eight, I'd have exploded. Alas, it appears to be a fan creation, not an authentic Mattel product. Image credit: I'm not sure, though it uses a NASA base map from after Luna 24 landed in 1976 and Mattel box art

I was born in 1962, just ahead of John Glenn's orbital Mercury-Atlas flight. The 1960s were a great epoch for space toys, but I fear that I missed out on most of those. My parents were not keen on encouraging my odd fascination with spaceflight. I had some Major Matt Mason dolls, but none of the larger sets. It wasn't about poverty; I had a big metal garage with lots of moving parts and lots of Man from Uncle spy toys. They just didn't see space as a "normal" sort of interest for a youngster.

Oddly enough, though, they took me to see 2001: a Space Odyssey during its first theatrical run. (I think I had to take hostages - it's all hazy now.) I remember vividly building an Apollo LM model with my dad. I think that stands out because it was the only time he did something with me that was related to space.

The LM was great, but it was not enough for me. It was a display piece; I needed sturdy vessels with which I might conquer the Solar System.

I was eight or nine when I began to use materials I had at hand to make models of spacecraft of my own crude design. In the 1970-1975 period, in fact, I designed my own space program. Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama and Earthlight were a major inspirations, as were the book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bob McCall's first art compendium, Our World in Space, also influenced my vision. Some Star Trek influence was inevitable, though my space travelers didn't tangle with aliens.

Foam cups, pins, dixie cups, pens, popsicle sticks, colored markers, curtain weights, and rubber cement were my construction materials. The weights made excellent footpads; by far the heaviest parts of my spacecraft, the disk-shaped lead weights help them to stand upright in the face of stray breezes and casual sideswipes from affectionate cats.

Perhaps in keeping with Star Trek, my ships included two propulsion systems. Chemical rockets permitted proximity operations near space stations and facilities on asteroids and other vacuum worlds. A far more advanced "photonic" drive enabled high-gee acceleration with minimal propellant expenditure. Think the Epstein Drive from The Expanse series.

The first vessel I built was an all-purpose explorer/police vessel in the tradition of Endeavour from Rendezvous with Rama or Star Trek's Enterprise. I envisioned a fleet of such craft. They were not designed to land, though each carried a small sortie vehicle and a 2001-esque service pod. The sortie vehicle and pod could be combined to yield a beefier sortie vehicle and the sortie vehicle could be broken down to create a second service pod.

Much of the action in my space program centered on the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter and the asteroidal moons and trojan asteroids of Jupiter. Asteroid settlement was well under way in my year 2020. My explorer/police vessel could "dock" with small and middle-sized asteroids with compatible facilities. It could also push smaller vessels with higher-g landing capability, much as the Apollo Command and Service Module pushed the Lunar Module.

The second vessel I built was a long-range explorer with higher-g landing capability. It had a beefy photonic drive, chemical verniers, and a small crew complement - perhaps only four people. Basically, it was a big engine with scientific instrument pallets standing in as skin, eight adjustable landing legs, and a crew module on top.

A more conventional vessel needed weeks to travel between worlds of the Inner System and the Asteroid Belt and months to travel between the Outer System worlds. The long-range explorer could reach Pluto from Ceres in five weeks. It could also descend through atmospheres: an optional disposable heat shield enabled Titan landings. Mysterious Titan was a major focus of scientific exploration in my space program.

The third vessel I designed, the Vulpecula-class space tug/freighter, was a small, none-too-speedy ship capable of pushing a standardized cargo module between worlds. It could accompany a cargo module to its destination or simply boost it on its way, then dock with an incoming cargo module and return to port. Vulpecula could operate with or without a crew and could land.

Though I only built a pair of cargo modules, I imagined that they would take many forms. They could, for example, serve as tankers for refueling spacecraft. Another module was decked out as a passenger pod. The influence of the Franz Joseph space freighter in the Star Trek Technical Manual is unmistakable.

I also built a fast courier. Like the explorer/police ship, these vessels of the Pegasus class weren't meant to land. They had a photonic engine identical to the explorer/police ship's engine, but could accelerate harder because they included a small crew cabin, no auxiliary vehicles, and minimal instrumentation. They were meant to move people rapidly between scattered ships and worlds. For example, if an isolated trojan asteroid colony urgently needed a surgeon, one could be dispatched in a fast courier.

Finally, I built a long-range explorer capable of really epic trips. An extended version of the explorer/police ship, I envisioned that only a few would be built. Most traveled in pairs to interesting worlds beyond Pluto. Their crews hibernated in shifts. They traded speed for on-site crew expertise. These vessels were considered to be an evolutionary step toward star travel; this made their journeys as important as their destinations. In truth, they were ahead of their time.

I didn't spend much time on Earth-to-orbit transportation. I assumed that rockets larger than the Saturn V would exist. That's all I remember.

Individuals and companies could own Pegasus-class fast couriers, the Vulpecula-class freighters, and cargo modules. The fast couriers became the equivalent of private jets.

Nowadays, my parents, who are in their late 70s, wisely accept my spaceflight and writing work. My dad, the radio engineer who abandoned an early interest in the ionosphere and Van Allen Belts when I was seven or eight - the documents he threw out filled several trash cans - has become interested in the aurorae at Jupiter and Saturn, space spin-offs, the Deep Space Network, and smallsats. My mother, for her part, doesn't understand much about space, but is glad that my enthusiasm for it led me to meet her granddaughter's mom.

Though I often lamented never acquiring Major Matt Mason's big moon base, in retrospect I am glad that I was thrown back on my own devices. Fueled by obsession, it caused me to become creative.

Whatever became of my space fleet? After Star Wars came out, I switched to building kit-bashed hyperdrive starships. The foam-cups-and-popsicle-sticks fleet came to seem archaic. One summer day as I prepared to depart for my first semester of college, I set fire to that fleet. The foam, rubber cement, and paper burned rapidly, leaving behind in moments only blackened pins and curtain weights. At college, my spaceships mostly became built of words, and it has remained so ever since.

Source: My Space Fleet (or, nostalgia concerning missed and lost toy spaceships)
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« Odpowiedź #5 dnia: Luty 11, 2018, 15:56 »
Update: New Job, New Plans
03 February 2018 David S. F. Portree


Gateway to the lunar surface base. Image credit: Boeing.

As some of you are aware, at the end of December I left my job as archivist, map librarian, and outreach guy at the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeology Science Center in Flagstaff, Arizona. I worked there for a little over 10 years. At the beginning of January, I started a new job as Community Outreach Specialist at the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera Science Operations Center (LROC SOC), which is part of the School of Earth and Space Exploration (SESE) at Arizona State University in Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona.

I am currently working remotely and part-time - we'll move down to Phoenix in a few months and I'll go full-time - yet I find myself putting in a lot of extra hours to get to know LRO, LROC, SESE, and ASU as quickly as I can. This is, after all, a dream job for me. I had long hoped that I might become part of a space mission team, and now I've made it happen.

This is a big life-change, which unfortunately means that I have neglected this blog. I've stopped scratching items off my list of planned posts and stopped suddenly writing impromptu new posts. I've managed a couple of omnibus posts bringing together in chronological order links to past posts and also an opinion piece, but I completed my most recent meaty new post just before Christmas. I have completed a large portion of a post on early NASA circumlunar plans, but it has stalled for the time being.

It might sound as though I plan to abandon writing about spaceflight outside the boundaries of my LROC job. That is, however, not correct. In fact, my new job has me so fired up that I can foresee a day when I'll be settled in and have a lot of excess energy to expend. It feels like someone turned the oxygen back on.

I am looking for ways to make this blog serve two purposes: first, to be a really nifty blog that teaches people about cool space history stuff and, second, to help me learn things applicable to my LROC job. So - you heard it here first - I hereby declare 2018 to be The Spaceflight History Year of the Moon Base.

I know what you are thinking now. "Yeah, right, he's making promises again and he ain't gonna come through. He'll get distracted and it'll be like, 'Hey, look, Mars is at opposition!'" (More likely, it'll be like, "Dammit, kiddo, pack up your books, the moving van is due in 15 minutes!")

So, getting back to this moon base thing. You see, several years ago I contracted with NASA to write a lunar counterpart to my book Humans to Mars. Then my wife was killed and my daughter gravely injured in a car crash, putting everything on hold, NASA changed historians, and when I asked them about getting started on Humans to the Moon again, I found that they had lost interest.

I had, however, by then done much of my research. I still have the documents I collected, and now the time seems right to put them to good use.

Just to get you in the proper frame of mind, here are links to the few moon base-type posts that are already part of this blog. Enjoy!

(...)

Source: Update: New Job, New Plans

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Update
11 July 2018 David S. F. Portree


That's no Moonbase. . .that's a Space Station. Image credit: NASA

After nearly two decades, I am no longer a resident of Flagstaff, Arizona, though I remain an Arizonan. The movers loaded up a truck and transplanted us in the Phoenix area on 6 July, where the temperature topped out at 114° Fahrenheit. In the intervening days, we've had dust storms mixed with rain, as might occur, I suppose, on a Mars where terraforming at last is showing obvious results. Neither the high temperature nor the dust storms are typical of Flagstaff (nor, indeed, of any other place I have lived).

That being said, this is familiar territory. My grandparents were snowbirds here for decades, and my late wife's parents retired to nearby Tucson. That was where I first met them. Also, Flagstaff and Phoenix are only about 100 miles apart, so I have visited the latter many times.

Flagstaff is at 7000 feet, while Phoenix is closer to 2000 feet. So, while Phoenix is desert and saguaro, Flagstaff is snowy mountains and ponderosa pine. I've always enjoyed that startling difference. High altitude meant noticeably lower air pressure in Flagstaff. One had to take care when opening food packages sealed closer to sea level. Failure to do so could result in food jetting out of its container.

None of this is especially relevant to the purpose of this blog. It is, however, illustrative of how my world is changing. I think the changes together make a pretty decent excuse for why this blog has been neglected this past month or so. We had to find lodgings, I continued working remotely for the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) team, I continued physical therapy, and then there was the seemingly endless packing of books and files. I have a lot of books and files. In fact, by weight, books and files probably accounted for 90% of our move.

Monday was my first day at work. Right now I am working on five Featured Image posts for the LROC website. One is about peculiar "cold spots" that appear around young, smallish craters in Diviner thermal data. Diviner is another instrument on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft. The other four Featured Images focus on anaglyph images of Tycho, the peculiar Mare Marginis "swirls," and two lesser-known geologic features. (Anaglyph images appear three-dimensional when viewed through red-blue or red-green glasses.)

As for this blog, I am eager to complete an all-new post. Though back in January I declared that I would focus on lunar bases in 2018, the post I am working on is about a space station. I'm not breaking my promise, however; the components designed for this station were re-applied to both a lunar-orbital station concept and an important lunar base study. I am not sure when this post will be complete, though unless I become lost in a dust storm, it will certainly be finished by the end of this month.

Source: Update

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Stay tuned for more posts!
29 August 2018 David S. F. Portree


Image credit: NASA

Much to my surprise, in the past few days I have received emails from several people asking whether I plan to continue writing my blog (and urging me to do so). I really have no idea how many people read my blog on a regular basis - I assume it is a small number - and I didn't expect anyone to miss my posts enough to get in touch.

Suffice it to say, I have no plans to abandon blogging. This summer has been a challenge, however, so blogging has had to take a back seat.

Since I wrote my last post, I moved from Flagstaff, Arizona, to Tempe, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona, and began on-site work at the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) Science Operations Center (SOC) as a science writer and outreach specialist. I began the job in December, but worked remotely until my daughter finished middle school in Flagstaff.

My new job means that, for the first time in my career, I am part of a space mission team. Previously, my work supported many missions, but I was always at least one step removed from the researchers and engineers directly participating in space exploration.

Now, when the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) spacecraft, currently circling the Moon, faces a challenge or scores a success, I hear all about it right away. I see new LROC data very soon after it reaches Earth. The SOC, with its control panels and display screens, is about 20 feet from my desk.

The new job and new city have meant a lot of changes for myself and my kid. I feel, however, that we are finally getting ahead of things. In fact, I am working on a new post which I plan to complete over the coming Labor Day weekend.

Source: Stay tuned for more posts!

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Preparing for Patreon
24 October 2018 David S. F.Portree


Apollo 7 launch, 11 October 1968. Image credit: NASA

It has taken me a while, but I now have worked out how I want to treat my Patreon patrons. By that, I mean what incentives to offer and how folks should expect to be charged.

I've learned that I can charge my patrons by new blog post. I like that idea, because I don't post on a regular schedule, and in the past year I've not posted often because of a new job, new home city, and new health problems. I'd hate to automatically charge people on a monthly basis and then miss posting in any given month.

In addition, I am working on two ebooks, publication date TBD. I like the idea of being my own publisher. I've published print works, so this will be something new for me. I expect I can earn more money this way than by publishing through a print publisher. I can also use access to the ebooks as an incentive.

I imagine it would go something like this - lowest-level patrons get the blog. More wealthy and/or generous patrons get a 25% markdown on the price of the ebooks. Even more wealthy and/or generous patrons get a 50% markdown. Insanely wealthy patrons get a 75% markdown. And the MegaPowerBall winner patrons get a 75% markdown, plus the second ebook for free!

I expect I'll also offer extras related to the ebooks. You know the drill: the more you contribute, the more extras you get. I'm not sure yet what the extras will be. I'd be happy to receive suggestions.

There'll be a Wall of Fame page. Not sure of the details yet, but it might go like this: lowest-level patron name is listed. Next up the scale, name with a link. Then name, image - avatar, picture, whatever - and link. Next up, the same but higher up the page. Then, for the top-level patrons, top of the page and perhaps some "advertising" text if they have a blog, podcast, or other project they want to promote. Of course, your image could be your advertising. No rule against that, but your placement would improve if you pledged more.

As for patron levels - my research indicates that most folks are more frugal than I am. By the same token, they pledge to more creators. I have to take into account the "per post" pledge structure, which I've noticed some folks don't understand. I'd hate for someone to think they were pledging $50 per month, then get a $150 charge if I post three posts in a month. I think that argues for lower pledge levels to avoid painful misunderstandings.

So, I think the maximum would be $20 per post, with lower levels of $15, $10, $5, and $1. I'd feel better about telling someone "You should've read the fine print" at those levels than at higher levels.

I seek a $2500 monthly income. At that level of income, I could live comfortably, freeing me to devote all my attention to the blog and ebooks, and add blog improvements (paid original art and posts based on research at costly archives being the first that leap to mind). That doesn't seem impossible, given the number of people who check out this blog. Most seem to be serious, intelligent people, which might imply that $5 per post would not break the bank.

If I posted twice per month, a $5 per pledge patron would get a $10 charge in that month. If I could do that for a year, they would pay me $120. If I could get just 20 people to post at that level, I would hit my goal.

That doesn't mean that $1 pledges would not be welcome. Change only that parameter in the example above, and they would pay in $2 in a month, or $24 in a year. I'd only need 105 people to pledge at $1 per post to reach my goal - and that's far fewer than visit the blog each day when I post frequently.

I invite discussion of these ideas, especially from prospective patrons and experienced Patreon creators. My plan is to start this at the beginning of 2019, which, being the start of the Apollo 11 50th anniversary year, seems to me to be an auspicious time to call on folks to support this blog.

Source: Preparing for Patreon

Polskie Forum Astronautyczne

Odp: [Spaceflight History Blog] Pardon Our Dust
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