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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
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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.


India hires private companies to build satellite

The competition heats up: For the first time India’s space agency ISRO has signed a deal with a private consortium of private companies to have them build satellites.

The contract signed on Friday includes assembly, integration and testing (AIT) of two spare navigation satellites consecutively in around 18 months. It was signed between M. Annadurai, Director of ISRO Satellite Centre (ISAC), and the consortium lead, Alpha Design Technologies P Ltd. ISAC assembles the country’s satellites for communication, remote sensing and navigation.

From the third year, Indian industry could expect competitive bids for a new lot of spacecraft of 300-500-kg class, perhaps five a year, for both ISRO and for export, Col. H.S. Shankar (retd), CMD of Alpha Design, told The Hindu. This is the first time that ISRO has outsourced an entire satellite to industry, said Col. Shankar .

The Modi government appears to be trying here to emulate NASA in putting private companies in charge of construction, rather than having things designed and built in-house by ISRO. This is a very good sign. If they do it now, in the early days of their space effort, they can reduce ISRO’s ability to grow into a large bureaucracy with its own vested interests.

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

One comment

  • LocalFluff

    Isn’t it Modi who is personally interested in space flight and personally ordered that the MOM spacecraft would carry a methane detector? The one that malfunctioned by design.

    India’s sudden money reform, where all high denomination bills are declared not to be money any more and only can be exchanged into lower denominations if one can prove that they have been honestly earned and taxed. Many millions of Indians were ruined over night. The crash in public demand for goods have forced manufacturing companies to mass layoffs and production stops. People are afraid that other paper bills also will be declared worthless. Total financial meltdown. And the purpose is to get rid of the huge black sector. But that represent a very large share of all value creation in India. Without it they’ll have the deepest depression ever. That single political decision can very well cause a global financial crisis and recession, and in any case the severest of depressions in India, just over night, by the governments conscious decision. Modi has proven that he is totally stupid, one of the stupidest political leaders in world history. He’s probably considering starting a surprise nuclear war on the US too now, also that without any reason or thought to it. Any good decision he makes is pure luck.

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