To read this post please scroll down.

 

Readers! A November fund-raising drive!

 

It is unfortunately time for another November fund-raising campaign to support my work here at Behind the Black. I really dislike doing these, but 2025 is so far turning out to be a very poor year for donations and subscriptions, the worst since 2020. I very much need your support for this webpage to survive.

 

And I think I provide real value. Fifteen years ago I said SLS was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said Orion was a lie and a bad idea. As early as 1998, long before almost anyone else, I predicted in my first book, Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, that private enterprise and freedom would conquer the solar system, not government. Very early in the COVID panic and continuing throughout I noted that every policy put forth by the government (masks, social distancing, lockdowns, jab mandates) was wrong, misguided, and did more harm than good. In planetary science, while everyone else in the media still thinks Mars has no water, I have been reporting the real results from the orbiters now for more than five years, that Mars is in fact a planet largely covered with ice.

 

I could continue with numerous other examples. If you want to know what others will discover a decade hence, read what I write here at Behind the Black. And if you read my most recent book, Conscious Choice, you will find out what is going to happen in space in the next century.

 

 

This last claim might sound like hubris on my part, but I base it on my overall track record.

 

So please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. I could really use the support at this time. 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. Takes about a 10% cut.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it 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.


MetaBallStudios – Comparing explosive weapons used in war

An evening pause: I think every leader in the world needs to watch this, as I think our modern rulers don’t seem to know what these weapons can do.

Hat tip Alton Blevins.

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 or from any other book seller. If you want an autographed copy the price is $60 for the hardback and $45 for the paperback, plus $8 shipping for each. Go here for purchasing details. 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

4 comments

  • Max

    The last one was devastating, who knows what they (or us) have in their arsenal nowadays.

    I showed that to my grandson, then he showed me this…
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erQ_9yEz0ls&pp=ygUSbXJiZWFzdCBmaXJld29ya3Mg

    11 minutes of YouTube kids lighting fireworks, starting from small, to the biggest made. Having to get permission from air traffic control to set it off.

  • MDN

    And then there is James Cameron’s classic portrayal of this nightmare:

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LqSMk2IzK2o

  • pzatchok

    The czar bomba proved that yes a huge bomb could be built and even larger ones were possible.

    But the problem was it took exponentially more plutonium to make each larger sized bomb.

    It was realized that instead of bigger bombs it would be better in all ways to make a bunch of smaller bombs striking in circular patterns. This would cover a far larger area with destruction than one large bomb and use less material to do it.
    Plus it is harder to stop multiple bombs from coming in than just one.

  • Mark Sizer

    pzatchok, something about damage being a cube-root, not square-root, function, iirc.

    At the risk of going full Stalin on tragedy vs statistics, I believe nuclear weapons are feared all out of proportion to their effects – in America.

    In Russia, if one significantly damages Moscow and St. Petersburg, the country is basically gone.
    In America, if one were to wipe LA, DC, and NY from the map as if they had never existed, we’d be really pissed, but not even close to “gone”.
    Most European countries are somewhere in between, although closer to Russia.

    Fallout is another issue, entirely (go for DC or NY, not LA, please).

    Our gigantic nuclear arsenal is more for blowing up Russian nukes than Russian cities; there just aren’t that many of them.

    I rather approve of France’s policy of “you get one little nuke as a warning shot.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *