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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.


SpaceX launch of used Dragon to ISS scrubbed

Capitalism in space: SpaceX has scrubbed today’s launch of a previously used Dragon capsule to ISS due to bad weather.

They are going to try again on Saturday, June 3.

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

9 comments

  • wayne

    Never be in a hurry to be struck by lightning.

    (Didn’t one, or more, of the Apollo launches get struck by lightening?)

    fyi– the NASA Channel was covering this live today and will be doing so again on Saturday.
    (they don’t generally cover SpaceX, or at least I don’t see them, and… my TV set is bigger than my computer monitor.)

  • Wayne: I prefer watching on SpaceX’s stream, mostly because they don’t have their announcers mouth preachy and badly scripted propaganda. They give it to me straight, which is what I want.

  • David Nudelman

    quote Bob Z “I prefer watching on SpaceX’s stream”

    Me too, the young blonde is very flirty

  • diane wilson

    Wayne, Apollo 12 was struck by lightning shortly after launch; it knocked out a bunch of electronics. Fortunately, someone on the ground knew the right switch to reset, and amazingly, one of the astronauts (Alan Bean, IIRC) actually knew where the switch was.

  • Dick Eagleson

    wayne,

    NASA only covers SpaceX launches when SpaceX is launching something for NASA. Thus far, that’s been Dragons and DSCOVR. Haven’t taken the time to check if the F9’s first test launch – with a mass that wasn’t Dragon – was covered by NASA or not.

    Second Mr. Zimmerman on the huge superiority of SpaceX’s own video feed.

    Second also Mr. Nudelman’s appeciation of the splendidly yummy Ms. Kate Tice.

  • wayne

    Dick–
    Thank you for enlightening me.
    -I did not think NASA-TV covered 100% of the SpaceX launches, ‘cuz I generally check to see.
    (tangentially— whoever programs that channel, needs to be replaced.)

    Personally, I prefer the technical-broadcast myself. And for the hosted-broadcast I prefer the older gentleman’s color-commentary, if I’m going to suffer through over-talk.

    https://www.linkedin.com/in/katetice

    — a 5 year stint as “Diversity Intern” at Penn State. (I wonder who she voted for in 2008, 2012, and 2016? HAR!)

  • Dick Eagleson

    wayne,

    Agree the NASA launch webcasts are fairly awful. They’re also not very reliable. The webcast feed crashes a lot. I haven’t watched anything on a live NASA feed in maybe two years or more. SpaceX’s feed is a lot more solid and asymptotically close to infinitely more fun.

    Anent the SpaceX webcasts themselves, if there’s something I’m particularly curious about, I can always check the technical webcast via replay after the fact. For live viewing, I prefer the hosted webcast, particularly Ms. Tice and her black counterpart Ms. Tyson, along with their two male “backup dancers.” The cheers greeting each flight milestone from the crowd of SpaceX-ers clustered outside Mission Control in Hawthorne is always good too. Very infectious. Like being at a football game without having to – you know – actually watch football.

    Re: Ms. Tice’s politics – she’s a millennial. Kinda comes with the territory at that age. I see on her personal web site that she wants to meet Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I was a lefty in my salad days too. Oh, to be young and foolish – eh?

    I do wonder a bit, though, at how a blonde, Nordic, Valkyrie shieldmaiden-type like Ms. Tice ever got to be a “diversity intern.” Perhaps she was the token white girl?

  • Edward

    Dick Eagleson wrote: “I prefer the hosted webcast, particularly Ms. Tice and her black counterpart Ms. Tyson, along with their two male ‘backup dancers.’

    It’s nice that women are shown working in their role as engineers. When I was in college, only 15% of the engineering students were women, and my understanding is that it is about the same today. The show “The Big Bang Theory” addressed this issue, and showed two possible solutions for getting women more interested in science careers:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7K8ydqGm2c (2 minutes, the problem)

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypbRY14Fjjo (2 minutes, solutions)

    I prefer the hosted webcast, not (just) because of the eye candy engineers but because I often learn something new about how SpaceX does their engineering.

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