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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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Another mountain view from Curiosity

Low resolution panorama
Click for full resolution panorama. The original images can be found here, here, here, here, here, and here.

I hope my readers won’t get tired of seeing these mountain views from Curiosity, but I can’t get enough of them.

The image above is a panorama I’ve created from six photos taken by Curiosity’s right navigation camera yesterday. The box marks the location of that spectacular outcrop I highlighted in the previous mountain view five days ago. The red dotted line shows the rover’s upcoming planned route. The white cross indicates the pavement bedrock where the science team hopes to next drill.

For scale, Navarro Mountain is rises about 400 feet from where the rover presently sits. The peak of Mount Sharp is actually not visible, blocked by its near white flank on the panorama’s left edge. That peak is still 13,000 feet higher up from where the rover presently sits.

The rise of rocks next to the words “entering Gediz Vallis” is actually only probably five to ten feet high, as it is very close to the rover.

Curiosity’s travels continue to get more and more exciting to follow.

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

5 comments

  • Andi

    The terrain (Marsrain?) is getting more and more interesting – love the mountain views!

    Can’t wait for a panorama from the summit of Mount Sharp!

  • How tall are these mountains?
    I try to compare the features you highlight in your posts with Earth, just to help me relate to them. The differences between the planets are fascinating to me.

  • Jeff

    Thanks for the rover updates and cool images. One of my daily internet stops, (after BtB – of course) is the UMSF site. The folks there have constantly amazed me with their image skills and spacecraft knowledge of the many missions to Mars, the planets and beyond. One image wizard in particular, Jan Van Driel, posts almost daily panoramas using the navigation cameras from Curiosity. This is his latest, posted yesterday (8/27/20) from Sol 3219.

    http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=8644&view=findpost&p=254277

    While the navcam shots are lower resolution and wider FOV, these panos give me such a feeling of “you are there”, standing next to rover and gazing out across the surface. Recently I had one of the panos on screen and while scrolling around, one of the grandsons came up and asked what I was looking at. After explaining where, how and why the Martian view was taken, he said, “That’s cool, grandpa”. I was tempted to launch into “if you study hard and do good in school, you might be able to got there one day” talk, but he ran out of the room to go pester his little brother. Again! hahaha

  • wayne

    Jose-
    Great question. distance and height would be good.

    (nicely done Supertramp tune!)

  • Jose: As I say in the post itself, Navarro is about 400 feet high, and Mt Sharp rises another 13,000 feet higher.

    The highlighted outcrop I estimate to be about 100 feet tall, give or take a bit. It sits about 100 feet away, and only looks smaller and farther away because of camera lens distortion.

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