Scroll down to read this post.

 

Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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 or subscription:

 

4. 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.


SpaceX looking to raise more private investment capital

According to a report yesterday by Bloomberg, SpaceX is now in talks to raise more private investment capital, based on a new and vastly increased valuation of the company, from $255 billion to $350 billion.

A so-called tender or secondary offering, through which employees and some early shareholders can sell shares, provides investors in closely held companies such as SpaceX a way to generate liquidity.

The amount the company hopes to raise by this tender is at present not known. In the past decade the company has raised about $12 billion in private capital in order to fund development of both its Starship/Superheavy rocket as well as its Starlink internet constellation. The latter however is already generating about $9 billion in revenue annually in the past two years, more than enough to fund the projects.

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. from 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. 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

7 comments

  • Richard M

    Hi Bob,

    “Starship internet constellation. ” Did you mean to say, “Starlink internet constellation”?

  • Dick Eagleson

    As described, this seems less an effort by SpaceX to raise additional capital and more a particularly large version of the at-least-annual so-called “liquidity events” that SpaceX has been staging for years to allow long-time investors and current and former employees to cash out some or all of their SpaceX holdings. The buyers of the stock on offer are new investors. The price at which all offered shares are cleared establishes an updated market cap number for the entire company.

    That that number is now said to be $350 billion comes as little surprise given recent Starship successes, continued strong demand for launch services and Starlink’s relentless growth in customer base, revenues and profitability.

    And the Musk-Trump tie-up certainly doesn’t hurt either. Nor should it. Both men have, literally, risked their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to put an end to the proto-totalitarian Obama-Clinton-Biden-almost-Harris cabal. With the would-be gauleiters of the Deep State now frantically scrabbling to find fresh rocks to hide under, the enemies of both men on the GS payroll no longer constitute a factor depressing the value of Trump’s and Musk’s holdings.

  • john hare

    You might use a bit of caution in your expectations of the Trump-Musk situation. There are some good things being suggested, as well as some of the ridiculously uninformed. While good things might happen in some areas, rule by executive order should make anyone nervous that has any grasp of history. Executive order government depending on who is in the White House this week is a minefield.

  • Dick Eagleson

    If “rule by executive order” makes you nervous, then your nervousness should, by rights, now be old enough to apply for a driver’s license as the first modern administration to really push the envelope on executive orders was Obama’s. Remember “I have a phone and a pen?”

    Biden, having been a demented wreck even upon taking office, simply signed whatever was placed in front of him by his puppet masters Pelosi, the Clintons and the Obamas.

    Trump’s first term came as a rude surprise to this cabal and resulted in many reverses despite continuous attempts – many successful – to balk Trump at every turn. Trump’s “defeat” in 2020 and the campaign of extra-constitutional lawfare against him and his supporters was supposed to bury and pave over the embarrassment of 2016 – 2020 but had, in the end, the opposite effect and so here we are. The progressive junta has done its level best to “fundamentally transform America” into the Marxist totalitarianism it seeks, but has been tripped up by the American electorate in the clubhouse turn.

    Now, it is the Herculean job of Trump and his appointees to clean the Augean Stables on the Potomac. That will require reams of executive orders as well as hand-to-hand combat in the bureaucratic trenches. I am cautiously optimistic that all involved will prove equal to their essential task – namely, doing to the Deep State what Sherman did to Atlanta. If we are fortunate, the next four years will see decades of creeping proto-totalitarianism so thoroughly wrecked as to be unrepairable even by a possible future Obama 2.0. We shall see.

    I am, though, also curious as to what you regard as “ridiculously uninformed” about the apparent plans of the incoming Trump Administration 2.0.

  • john hare

    The phone and the pen are classics, as well as you didn’t build that. The dividing line was Obamacare, which I consider criminal.
    But ridiculously uninformed is massive tariffs and war on immigration.

  • F

    It is fair to say that the tariffs are being considered not so much as a policy, but as a tactic. Trump wants to use them in negotiations with nations that are treating the United States unfairly in some manner.

    As for immigration, there was a time when immigrants came to the United States seeking the “American Dream”, which meant having the opportunity to work hard to achieve success, and integrating into American culture and society. Today, however, is quite different, with many (even most) of the people rushing into the country in order to obtain the many handouts the federal and state governments offer, all while refusing to assimilate. With all the legal and illegal immigration that has taken place, a moratorium, of the sort that had often been enacted multiple times in US history, is definitely in order.

  • Jeff Wright

    I still have yet to see a political cartoon of Biden wearing Henry Blake’s hat with fishhooks:

    “What am I signing today, Radar?”

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

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