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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
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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.


On the radio…

UPDATE: The show started late due to technical problems, but is going on now!

I will be doing another long guest appearance tonight on The Space Show with David Livingston, beginning at 7 pm (Pacific). You can listen live here. (link fixed, though now it doesn’t matter as the show just ended. It will be archived and available in a day or so.)

As always, I strongly encourage my readers to call in. Makes the show more fun.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

3 comments

  • Gary

    Bob,

    Thanks for the nugget on the speculation and about Musk and a space telescope. Makes a tremendous amount of sense to me. Hope it happens sooner rather than later. I still have a suspicion someone will figure out how configure a space telescope with an array of cube sats. Maybe it would be a radio telescope rather than optical, but the things are too dang cheap and the replacement of individual cube sats would seem so easy compared to trying to repair a traditional space telescope. Really enjoy your appearances with Dr Livingston. One of the few things which can motivate me to stay up until midnight any more!

  • Lee S

    I’m looking forward to listening… As I always do… Bob, you are generally the best regular guest on the space show… And believe me, it bugs me to bits that I never get chance to speak with the pair of you due to the bloody time difference.
    But I have to say, can’t we get a crowd funding thing going or something to get Dr Livingston some new equipment? The show still sounds like an 80s FM radio talk show with bad reception…. But it’s actually an archive of immense importance, and deserves a better sound quality.
    I would bung in to help David get a better sounding set up… He might fight it… But the quality of the show itself deserves it.
    Any thoughts?

  • Jay

    I wished I was listening last night in regards to the Small Modular Reactors (SMR). One of my co-workers came from INL (Idaho National Labs) and talks about them all the time. The caller is correct, one of the private contractors is NuScale. They are still building the first experimental model at INL.
    I have not heard of any space applications, so far they have been targeted towards electrical utilities with microgrid applications.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

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Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

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