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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.

 

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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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Russians say “Nyet” to Dragon docking on its next flight

The competition plays hardball: The Russians say “Nyet” to letting SpaceX’s Dragon capsule dock with ISS on its next flight.

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

4 comments

  • P.S. Wallace

    And the other partners did not want tourists on board the ISS. So what, Russia?

  • Yeah, and considering that they won’t actually be docking the Dragon anyway, they’ll be berthing it, I can’t really see the point of this announcement.. it’s just politics.

  • Kelly Starks

    I’ve got two thoughts and a grin over this. Imean you could just write it off as Russia not wanting to help a possible competitor – but really SpaceX is in no position to compete with them.

    Or you could remember the Soviets/Russians nearly destroyed their Mir space Station, and nearly lost the crew, when they tried a test docking a prototype new automatic docking cargo craft. A good chunk of Mir was destroyed, and they been doing that sort of thing a LOT longer then musk has been walking around. So with Russia about to become the defacto owners of the ISS – they might very well not want some fly by night dot.com billionaire with political connections to trash it.

  • Chris Kirkendall

    It’s real simple – they know they aren’t going to be able to compete on price & probably not quality either, and that’s why they fear SpaceX. They’re in no hurry to lose business – they need the $$ they’re gonna derive by charging us millions per flight to carry our guys now that we have no other way to get ’em into space (after the final Shuttle flight)…

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