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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.
 

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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.


Europe’s satellite makers want Ariane 6

Europe’s six biggest satellite makers have written Arianespace to demand that the company build its next generation Ariane 6 rocket by 2019 or face a significant loss of business.

Given the advent of electric propulsion and the dramatic launch-cost reduction offered by Space Exploration Technologies Corp., the operators say, the new Ariane 6 needs to be in service by 2019 or face the risk that Europe’s Arianespace launch consortium will be permanently sidelined. The letter was signed by six members of the European Satellite Operators Association. Signatories included the chief executives of Intelsat, SES, Eutelsat, Inmarsat, Hispasat and HellasSat.

This letter is clearly intended to help prod Arianespace into making a decision on whether to build a new rocket, Ariane 6, or upgrade Ariane 5. Right now the company’s partners have been unable to come to an agreement about what to do.

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

4 comments

  • Robert Clark

    This irritates the heck out of me. The right decision is obvious. You have to take the commercial space approach to have any chance of competing with SpaceX on launch prices. But just as with the U.S. space program the Europeans have been doing it the old way with huge and bloated labor dependencies in so many states, i.e., countries in the case of Europe, for so long, that they can’t break themselves from the old way of doing things.
    I’m beginning to think the only way commercial space is going to have any success in Europe is if someone like Elon Musk comes along in Europe who tries to get an independent privately funded launch system developed. SpaceX was able to do it in four years. There is no doubt in my mind an creative, innovative individual in Europe could do it in the same time or less.

    Bob Clark

  • Competential

    It won’t happen in Europe. The US has a unique entrepreneurial culture. Any european who wants to create a great company, goes to the US to do it.

    The solution is to not develop any new launcher. Just buy SpaceX’s services and invest in something where they can be competitive.

  • wodun

    “Given the advent of electric propulsion”

    How does this effect the need for a new launcher?

  • Electric propulsion on satellites is allowing satellite makers to significantly reduce their size and weight, which means a smaller rocket (like Falcon 9) can do the job much more efficiently than the Ariane 5, which is designed to loft two satellites into orbit, with one being a heavier older designed satellite.

    To compete effectively Arianespace’s next primary rocket must be designed for these lighter satellites.

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