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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
 
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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.


Watch Rocket Lab launch and attempt to capture first stage with helicopter

I have embedded below the live stream of Rocket Lab’s launch today from New Zealand, scheduled for a 3:41 pm (Pacific) liftoff. The rocket carries 34 satellites for deployment.

More exciting however will be the attempt to recover the first stage. On this launch the Electron rocket’s first stage will control its descent using both thrusters and parachutes so that a helicopter can make the first attempt to snatch it out of the air before it hits the ocean.

If successful, Rocket Lab will then hopefully be able to reuse the first stage on a later launch.

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

7 comments

  • t-dub

    They caught it!

  • Willi

    RKLB is up half a buck to $8 a share in after market trading after after a claimed recovery of the rocket’s first stage. I say “claimed” because it wasn’t obvious from the video that capture was successful.

  • sippon_bourbon

    Update. They are saying they caught it, but the pilot had some different/odd load characteristics. For safety reasons he cut it loose near the vessel they had staged just for that reason.

    So. Partial success on the catch.

  • Tom

    Call me the Doubting Thomas but I have not yet seen the booster capture image or a positive announcement from Rocket Lab that they caught it. That they were very close is plain to see but no swinging booster images have crossed my screen yet. Does anyone have a link?

    Thomas

  • sippon_bourbon

    Tom,

    They announced it on the live feed. The camera angle was not great.

    At 52:450, if you put it in slow-mo, the yellow line is snagged. I am guessing the camera was pointing straight down.
    As the aircraft flew forward the drag pulled it back out of view.

    I too was watching hoping to catch it.

    Toward the end, before they went into the payload deployment sequence she says they he dropped it for safety.

    It is kind of funny. One of their earlier missions was called “Pics or it didn’t happen”.

  • t-dub

    The video just showed a brief glimpse of the capture hook and rope kinda starting to entangle with the first stage parachute line then it went out of view. They really need to up their game on the video they take. When the announcer said they had caught it I took her word for it, so if I was wrong I apologize. Too bad they had to cut it loose if that’s what happened. Hopefully some more video or picture evidence will come out soon to verify. If I didn’t have to go to the lab right now I would have more time to investigate this but an MRI machine awaits my presence.

  • t-dub noted: “They really need to up their game on the video they take.”

    I think this was a thread on the forum a few years ago. There is a developing field for space launch video. And those who know how to do it.

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