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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
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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.


Some interesting comments about NASA’s future from Clark Lindsey

Clark Lindsey of www.rlvnews.com/ has posted some interesting thoughts in reaction to the successful launch of the Air Force’s second reusable X-37b yesterday and how this relates to NASA’s budget battles in Congress. Key quote for me:

Charles Bolden doesn’t seem prepared to make a forceful case against the clear and obvious dumbness of the HLV/Orion program. Perhaps he in fact wants a make-work project for NASA to sustain the employee base.

As I’ve said before, the program-formerly-called-Constellation is nothing more than pork, and will never get built. Why waste any money on it now?

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

  • Kelly Starks

     ..As I’ve said before, the program-formerly-called-Constellation is nothing more than pork, and will never get built.
     > Why waste any money on it now?
    Robert, Robert, Robert.

    Pork was the primary design goal of Constellation. How else could Griffen design a return to the moon configuration rivaling the total cost of the total space race program of the ‘60’s in same year dollars. An Orion Capsule that would cost 20% more to develop then the shuttle orbiters, and yet was fully expendable and much less safe (compromises must be made to keep the costs up) then the orbiters. 2 Ares boosters that each rivaled the total development cost of the total shuttle program.

    Pork has been one of the two primary goals of NASA (sp[ace merely a means to those ends) and Griffin could boast of delivering in spades. Congress and the public would get the pork they loved – and they would give NASA the votes it needed.

    Seriously bad timing for Griffin with the public – and hence congress.. reluctantly – losing their taste for pork. As of yet no other real mission has been agreed to, so the point is to just keep it running so all US manned space (old space or new space) capabilities in the country does die. There is a real love in the US for the US to have a NASA and a manned space program. But sorting that out isn’t a high priority at the moment – so having NASA treed water on Constellation, and stopping Obama from killing NASA, is the best were going to get.

    Welcome to the 21st century..

    8(

  • Kelly Starks

    In a more philosophical mood. If congress does go with a commercial option, really the only two credible providers would be Boeing and L/M for the same reasons they won Orion/Ares. If you keep the same contract and NASA oversight rules – they’ll cost as much as Orion /AresHLV. If NASA gets to choose the design, it will look like Orion /AresHLV.

    Not what I’d choose. If your being reasonable a version of Boeings X-37b with crew carry would maker more sense – but congress doesn’t want to get that hands on enough to choose a design themselves, and NASA convinced them you need a Apollo style capsule and HLV to get beyond LEO. So…..

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