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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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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.


Off to Huntsville, Alabama

I am about to leave for Huntsville, Alabama to give a lecture: tomorrow, July 25, 2019, at 6 pm (Eastern), at the National Geographic Theater located at the US Space and Rocket Center.

This event is part of their “Pass the Torch” lecture series. My subject: How Apollo 8, not Apollo 11, won the 1960s space race and changed the world

If you are Huntsville or nearby please consider coming by. It will be a great event.

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

6 comments

  • Jay

    Robert,
    I visited there last week after I got done with a project I had in Tennessee. First thing I did was make a bee line to the Saturn V! I never get tired of looking at that. I wish you had the event last week, I probably would of caught it.

    I am sure you have been there before, but just to warn you, there is that super humidity there. We both live in areas of the U.S. with very low humidity. Safe flight.

  • Richard M

    Well, I wish I could make this. Hope they can make a recording of it available at some point.

    I think you are 100% correct: Apollo 8 won the Space Race. We now know the Soviets were really nowhere near being able to do a landing in 1969 (and likely for some time beyond that) given the massive teething problems with the N1.

    But they *did* have an outside chance of pulling off a circumlunar Zond flight before an American lunar orbit flight (“F” mission), which would have been a major propaganda coup than it deserved to be; and the evidence is that the Soviets were trying up to the last minute to do *something* at Baikonur in December (see Quest, 2004 issues Volume 11, numbers 1 and 2). Given them a few more months to try, and . . .

    But Apollo 8 beat them to the punch. Apollo 8 won the race. And in many ways, it is the most historic space flight.

  • Ryan Lawson

    Ha! I am going to drive up from Birmingham. Unusually low temps and humidity these past couple of days in Bama!

  • Ryan Lawson

    It was nice to meet you Mr. Zimmerman! We both enjoyed the presentation and I especially appreciated hearing about the real human elements behind these major historical events. The contrast between Lovell’s and Borman’s perspective of Earthrise is definitely thought provoking. Aside from your talk and eating German food underneath a Saturn V, we both also were very impressed with the VR Apollo 11 experience. Seeing the Earth from orbit and watching the first step from the perspective of the Moon’s surface was mindblowing. Overall, it was a very worthwhile trip to Huntsville!

  • Ryan: It was a pleasure to meet two of my readers. Note that the famous Earthrise picture was taken by Bill Anders, not Jim Lovell. I hope I didn’t say Lovell in my talk by mistake. I didn’t think so.

  • Ryan Lawson

    You are quite right, I just had Lovell on the brain. You did specifically say it was Anders in the talk.

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