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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
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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.


March 21, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold.

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

  • LocalFluff

    Ted Cruz (also visually) owned the signing of that space bill. I don’t know if those three fingers on the president’s desk carries some specific meaning, but to anyone, even to my dog, it is clear who is running the show here. Funny then when Marco Rubio tries to say something about Florida from behind Ted Cruz’ shoulder.

    https://www.whitehouse.gov/featured-videos/video/2017/03/21/president-trump-signs-s-442

    I’m still blown away by the fact that I can type w h i t e h o u s e . g o v and see Donald Trump pop up!

    It was btw the most unengaged and tired Trump I’ve seen, while he signed this and read some text from a paper. He left NASA basically untouched, maybe only thanks to Ted Cruz. No great space policies to expect Trump during the next 8 years. It’s up to the private sector now.

  • LocalFluff

    The “Orion spacecraft. Pronounced like “Onion” or “Orient”. Just reading text and there’s some new unfamiliar Greek word. 2:00 into the WH clip. I think Trump will become one of the greatest presidents ever, but he’s not into space at all. Not for it, not against it, just completely uninterested. Like almost everyone. A very good old friend, who’s much more intelligent than I am, who founded and runs a small company that develops great software, recently asked me what the Milky Way is. He had never seen it and had no concept of what a galaxy is.

  • LocalFluff

    Maybe the president was thinking about “Oreos” when he read “Orion”?
    “No more Oreos for you”, Chris Christy! (He immediately realized that he needed to excuse that in order to not sound like: “I’m putting your fat candy ass on a diet”, but that genie was already out of the bottle and in everyone’s mind). He is rumoured to have promised him the vice presidency on the phone the day before he instead picked Pence. I imagined he celebrated with his wife that one night when he thought that he had a chance to become the president of the USA one day. Waking up with a hangover. Trump really tortured Christie. Anyway, it seems to me that Trump’s interest in space flight is on that level.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hShkLiatR0

  • LocalFluff

    I’m way over analyzing this, but he actually says:
    “The Oreo spacecraft raft.” :-D

  • wayne

    LocalFluff–
    Good stuff.

    O Fortuna sung with misheard lyrics
    https://youtu.be/pQEfxhvAy0c
    (3:00)

  • BSJ: reload BtB. I have posted a link to this story already.

  • LocalFluff

    @wayen
    Your latin is quite good! (For an American). “Leaky aquariataries”, now it all makes sense to me.
    The only politician that really makes sense to me is Ron Paul. I don’t understand why this ad campaign of his didn’t make him president 4 years ago. Free bananas!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=igQlbesF0zA

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