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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.

 

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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.


Starliner successfully docks with ISS

Starliner docked to ISS
Screen capture just after soft docking.

Boeing and NASA today successfully docked an unmanned Starliner capsule to ISS for the first time, completing the up-from-Earth portion of this demo mission to prove out this Boeing spacecraft as a future ferry to bring astronauts to and from the station.

The screen capture to the right, taken from the live feed, shows Starliner just after a successful soft capture docking. This was shortly followed by a hard dock.

They will open the hatch tomorrow after checking out the capsule’s linkage with ISS.

The docking itself was delayed by about 78 minutes, partly to time the docking during a period of good orbital communications and partly because of an issue with NASA’s own docking ring on the station that required engineers to reset it.

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

8 comments

  • GaryMike

    The elimination of contingency purchases of Soyuz seats for American astronauts.

    Starve the beast.

    Rogozin is sad.

  • Col Beausabre

    In the Anglo-Dutch Wars in the 1600’s, Admiral de Ruyter ordered a broom be lashed to the masthead of his flagship when he entered port to show he had swept the seas clean of the English

    American submariners revived the custom in WW2, when coming in after a successful patrol. https://imgur.com/aXOgIT3

    Maybe we should start displaying them after each successful launch and make sure Rogozin gets a copy of the video

  • David K

    Better late than never I suppose.

  • Jeff Wright

    Col.

    That was in response to a whip lashed to a periscope was it not?

    What was that old tale about a member of Congress being fooled by a sailor who spun a yarn about a deck-pecker bird when the divots in the teak were from spent shells falling sharp end down onto the deck?

  • mivenho

    I realize that the booster was destroyed – such a waste(!) – but will the SRBs be refurbished & reflown?

  • mivenho: No. The Atlas-5 is completely expendable. The only solid rocket boosters that were ever reused, at great cost and with no gain in efficiency, were the shuttle’s.

  • wayne

    mivenho-
    You might enjoy this—

    “From launch to landing, a space shuttle’s solid rocket booster journey is captured, with sound mixed and enhanced by Skywalker Sound.”

    “Riding the Booster: Up & Down in 400 Seconds”
    NASA (2012)
    https://youtu.be/527fb3-UZGo
    8:31

  • Jay

    Looking at the last photo on Spaceflight Now of the Starliner docked to the station and noticed that orange edge on the service module. Anyone else notice this? Is the sun reflecting off of it through the window?

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