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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
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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 successfully launches military satellite

Capitalism in space: SpaceX this morning successfully launched a National Reconnaissance Office surveillance satellite, using a first stage booster for the second time in only two months.

The booster successfully landed at Vandenberg Space Force base.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

14 SpaceX
11 China
5 Russia
2 ULA
2 Rocket Lab

The U.S. now leads China 21 to 11 in the national rankings.

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

  • Max

    Another successful launch leaving SpaceX still at the top of the game. I was worried there might be a chance of sabotage just to damage musk’s reputation seeding doubt as he expands into the political arena.
    Such an action would get its most mileage in the state of California.

    When normal people are watching TV, I’m sitting in the hot tub after dark watching stars, satellites, planes fly over…
    (Orion and Gemini are leaving as Taurus makes an entrance… The red giant octoris is dominant in the eastern sky)
    A extremely bright object passed over me at 8:30 in Salt Lake from the direction of North California towards Denver. (W-N/W to E-S/E)
    2 to 3 times brighter than the space station, traveling better than 4x the speed. In the first second I assumed it to be a falling star expecting it to explode… maybe a satellite reentering? It did not flare or change luminosity as it crossed the sky, (about 20 seconds) losing it in the clouds over the mountains. Unusual spectacular event, especially over a brightly lit city with the moon coming up.
    It could’ve been a rocket, wrong time and place for the SpaceX launch.

  • Jeff Wright

    I also spend a lot of time out of doors. The tornadic supercell that hit Oak Grove in 1998 passed aloft…right over my parents home. A blessing that they were spared…another twister touched down not many miles from them. You don’t want to see that sky…a lightning filled hellmouth. I will never forget it.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Mr Z,

    Perhaps I missed it.
    Did you post a roll up of last years numbers?

  • sippin_bourbon: Yes, I did my annual report at the start of the year. See:

    2021: The year that private enterprise took over rocketry

  • GaryMike

    Max,

    Please forgive me for suffering my pedant genes kicking in.

    I didn’t actually check this so as to allow you some wiggle room. I’m not a nun with a ruler. ;)

    “octoris”

    Did you mean Arcturas?

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