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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.


Perseverance’s future increasingly rocky road

Perseverance's uphill route
Click for original image.

Though nothing in any image so far from the Mars rover Perseverance matches the rocky terrain that the rover Curiosity has been traversing for the past two years as it climbs Mount Sharp in Gale Crater, as Perseverance has been climbing up the rim of Jezero Crater in the past few weeks it is beginning to get a hint of a future rougher road.

The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here and taken on October 20, 2024 by one of the rover’s high resolution cameras, is a good example. It looks uphill in the direction that the rover will travel. Note how as you go higher the ground appears to be more strewn with rocks and boulders. Another image, taken the same day by the rover’s high resolution camera, shows a close-up of an even more boulder-covered landscape.

Overview map
Click for interactive map.

The blue dot on the overview map on the right marks Perseverance’s approximate present position (the science team has not yet updated its interactive map to show the travels for the past two Martian days). The yellow lines in the inset show the approximate area covered by the picture above.

The white dotted line is Perseverance’s past travels, while the red dotted line indicates the various potential routes in the future, as the science team sends the rover out beyond Jezero Crater into the very rough mountainous terrain to the west. That terrain is believed to be rich in minerals and thus potentially a major mining region on Mars. Getting there and gathering data therefore is quite important, not only to untangle the geological history of the red planet but to provide valuable information for future colonists.

The exact route however remains undetermined. I expect the science team will make its choices as it gets closer to each fork in the planned route. We also should not be surprised if they send the rover in different directions, as they climb and see targets of interest not on the planned route.

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

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