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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.


Progress on the commercial space front

Progress on the commercial space front.

The most important announcement is NASA’s official acceptance of SpaceX’s COTS contract to transport cargo to and from ISS. The first official cargo mission is set for no earlier than October 8.

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

3 comments

  • jwing

    Is the SpaceX and NASA edreavor “progress” or is it just another form of Obam’a crony capitalism/socialism? I just finished reading an article posted on http://www.breitbart.com by George Landruth entitled, “SpaceX: Solyndra in Space.” The article makes some solid points: if a true free market mechanism was employed, SpaceX would initiallyhave invested its own money or private venture capital not NASA. Also, NASA would not own thetechnologies but SpaceX would if it was truly a private enterprise. Check out this article as I would appreciate reading the comments by posters to Behind the Black who have a far greater understanding of the current developments in space and SpaceX as a company. Thanks.

  • Jim,

    You should know that:

    1. SpaceX did and continues to invest its own money in Dragon/Falcon 9. NASA’s money is essentially a subsidy.
    2. SpaceX owns the technologies, not NASA.

    These two points, especially the second, are what make this approach so different from every other past NASA effort to build a replacement to the shuttle.

    Nonetheless, it would preferable if the government didn’t subsidize these companies, but merely bought their product like any other customer.

    One final point: Unlike Solyndra, where the CEO was a big fund-raiser and contributor to the Obama campaign, Elon Musk has not been a campaign contributor, as far as I know. (If he has, the sums have been inconsequential.) Moreover, unlike Solyndra, where gigantic sums of government money were given to a company before it had achieved anything, SpaceX has gotten its NASA subsidies as a reward for actual achievement. There is a difference between the two.

  • jwing

    Robert,
    Thank you for that informative reply. I was hoping you or someone would be able to confiim my original impressions of the private space industry. Not that there isn’t a place for NASA, but my hope is that private industry will ultimately be the innovator and vanguard. When will SpaceX go public?
    Jim

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