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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
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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 launches 29 more Starlink satellites

Note: My original post mistated the time of launch. Below is a corrected text:

SpaceX tonight at 10:21 pm (Eastern) successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its third flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

I specify the launch time because it occurred just outside the FAA’s so-called curfew banning all launches from 6 am to 10 pm local time, due to the government shutdown and a shortage of air traffic controllers to coordinate aviation and rocket launches. Though the Senate today voted to end the shutdown, that shutdown has not yet ended, and won’t until the House passes the Senate budget version and Trump signs it.

Thus, it appears Blue Origin has negotiated an exemption for its now planned launch of New Glenn on November 12, 2025 in the afternoon.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

147 SpaceX (a new record)
70 China
14 Rocket Lab
13 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 147 to 115.

Note that I had made an error in entering my numbers earlier this week in regards to China, and have now corrected the mistake, thus revising the numbers in the last few launch reports.

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

2 comments

  • mkent

    ”SpaceX tonight at 8:21 pm (Eastern)…”

    The launch was at 10:21 pm Eastern Standard Time (EST)…

    ”…successfully launched another 29 Starlink satellites…”

    Not yet it hasn’t. The satellites are still attached to the second stage in a low parking orbit. Just because the first stage landed doesn’t mean the mission was successful.

    ”Thus it appears SpaceX must have negotiated some exemption allowing it to launch…”

    The curfew applies from 6 am to 10 pm *local time*. This launch was outside the curfew. No exemption was necessary.

  • mkent: You are correct. I mistakenly applied my local time instead of Eastern. Now fixed.

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