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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.


How Differential Gear works

An evening pause: Though the first 1:50 of this very well done 1930s industrial is somewhat irrelevant and can be skipped, I think it is worth watching anyway. And the rest does a great job of explaining this mysterious piece of automobile equipment.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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

8 comments

  • mpthompson

    I saw this several years ago in the Internet Archive as part of the Prelinger Collection which is a massive collection of 10,000’s of “ephemeral” (advertising, educational, industrial, and amateur) films spanning much of the 20th century. There are many other similar movies if you care to look for them at:

    https://archive.org/details/prelinger

  • wayne

    Edward– good selection.

    The Jam Handy Organization produced 100’s of these short “industrial” films on topics such as this, and Chevrolet was a big client for over 30 years.

    The http://www.Archive.org folks have an extensive collection, all of which are available on-line, in numerous downloadable & streaming formats, and all are in the public domain & free for use.
    Tangentially– when you visit–check out the Archive’s (growing) collection of public domain Feature Films. Lots-o-obscure material, you can’t find anywhere. (Over 4,200 Titles.)

  • wayne

    mpthompson–
    you beat me to it!

    Highly recommend the Archive!
    You can get totally lost in their various Collections and download hundreds of gigabytes of audio/video.
    (-They also have an extensive collection of digitized 78 rpm records as well.)
    Their collection rivals the Library of Congress in scope, with the complete upside that you can download everything they have, immediately, for free, in numerous formats.

    The Archive is also part of “Project Gutenberg”– they designed inexpensive, specialized scanning-equipment, using off-the-shelf components, and have been busily scanning & digitizing literally millions of books and other “ephemeral” texts.

  • Joe

    Great vid Edward, many people, including some fellow mechanics don’t equate levers to gears or gears as levers and torque multipliers, lots of fun!, this is torque being applied to to different sized levers equally.

  • Alex

    To all: Automatic Transmission, How it works ?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ugao6jTyM7k

  • wayne

    Alex-
    Good video!

    Another Jam Handy Gem, that directly address’s Joe’s comment:

    “Spinning Levers”
    Jam Handy & Chevrolet 1936
    https://youtu.be/aFvj6RQOLtM
    (9:39)

  • Steve Earle

    Great video! I now have a much better understanding of how that part works. The MC riding team was a bonus :-)

  • Mitch S.

    Love those old training films.
    They put real effort and production value into them – really tried to engage the students.

    Here’s a favorite.
    It stars Rube Goldberg of the famous contraption cartoons.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGrrMr8Wv7U

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