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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.


The science cuts from sequestration

The journal Science today published this detailed look at the cuts that would occur in all the federal government’s various science programs should the automatic budget cuts outlined in the sequestration legislation occur on January 2, 2013.

Not surprising, the article includes a great deal of moaning and groaning about the terrible harm the cuts would have on science research should they occur. From the Obama administration:

“The report leaves no question that sequestration would be deeply destructive,” a senior Administration official told reporters in a conference call this afternoon. “The Administration does not support [these] indiscriminate, across-the-board cuts.”

And then there’s this quote from one science organization:

“Today’s OMB report confirms the worst,” Hunter Rawlings, president of the Association of American Universities, a Washington, D.C.-based group that represents major research campuses, said in a statement. “A budget sequester in January would have a terrible short- and long-term impact on the nation’s investments in scientific research and education, investments that are essential for long-term economic growth and prosperity.”

There are more such quotes in the article.

The trouble is, this is all hogwash. All the automatic cuts require is an 8.2% reduction in their budgets, which in almost every case will bring the budgets of these agencies back down to what they got in 2007.

Let me repeat that: Sequestration will only reduce the science budget down to numbers equivalent to the 2007 federal budget. I don’t remember the United States being a primitive, prehistoric culture with no science research in 2007. Do you?

For example, the enacted budget for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2012 was $30.7 billion. Obama had requested $30.9 billion for 2013. Sequestration will force NIH’s 2013 budget down to $28.3 billion, only slightly less than it received in 2007 ($28.9 billion). Hardly a disaster. Similarly, the National Science Foundation (NSF) got $6.98 billion in 2013. Obama requested $7.37 billion. Sequestration would give NSF $5.9 billion, exactly the same amount it got in 2007.

In truth, these cuts are actually quite reasonable, and all the fear-mongering about them should be ignored. And this applies as well to the cuts being proposed for military spending, which are slightly higher (9.4%) but harder devastating.

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

5 comments

  • Given the billions this Administration is squandering on its pet projects and political cronies, I will look forward to these cuts.

  • wodun

    The military cuts are in addition to $500b cut by Obama over the same time period. Still, $1t over ten years shouldn’t totally gut defense.

  • Jim

    Exactly.
    We all should do our best to make sure sequestration goes into effect, and then say,
    “Well done. What’s next?”
    10% cuts across the board is not too much to ask.
    I don’t understand all this hand wringing about sequestration…its one of the best things Congress, working along with the President, have been able to do in a long, long time.

  • I am astonished. We are in complete agreement.

    I see nothing wrong with sequestration, and hope it goes into effect. And if it doesn’t this will once again demonstrate that Congress and the President (whoever that is) are not serious about bringing the federal debt under control.

  • Jim

    Yes…you and me out for a beer…talking about sequestration, Ry Cooder, Bob Dylan, the Mets…everything else we keep off-topic while the beer is flowing.
    Nah, I’m sure there is more we would agree on.

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