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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.


Pakistan enlists China to launch its 1st astronaut by 2022

The new colonial movement: Pakistan has begun negotiations with China to launch its first astronaut by 2022.

Plans are afoot to send Pakistan’s first astronaut to space with China’s help in 2022, the country’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced on Thursday, saying the proposal got a nod from the federal Cabinet at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan ahead of his maiden visit to China next week.

An agreement between Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (SUPARCO) and a Chinese company has already been signed for the ambitious mission, Lahore-based The News daily cited Chaudhry as telling a press conference after Thursday’s Cabinet meeting. There’s no official confirmation of the project from Chinese officials yet.

Last December, Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Sohail Aman had also said that Islamabad will collaborate with China to send astronauts to space, Karachi-based ARY News reported.

There is zero doubt that Pakistan’s leaders started these talks after learning of India’s plans to launch its own manned mission in 2022. Unlike India, a religiously tolerant capitalist democracy, Pakistan (an Islamic dictatorship) does not have its own space capabilities. To compete with India it will need to hire someone else to provide the rocket and manned spacecraft.

China has said it wants to fly international visitors to its space station, expected to be in operation in 2022. This deal fits the needs of both nations, perfectly.

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

2 comments

  • BSJ

    You give India too much credit calling them religiously tolerant and Capitalistic.

    Ethnic and religious mob violence is quite common. With setting fire to trains packed with people being a popular mode of attack.

    And most large industries are State owned. Much to the detriment of the people.

  • BSJ: You focus on the bad, I focus on the overall. India’s growing prosperity in the last decade is directly the result of its decision to shift from a communist approach to a capitalist one.

    India once included Pakistan and its Muslims. Gandhi did not want the country to split, but to welcome the Muslims as part of it. It was the Muslims who wanted their own country, centered on Islam and oppressive to any other religion. When the split happened too many on both sides behaved very badly, but in the end, India remains a far more tolerant place than Pakistan.

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