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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.


May 26, 2023 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, go here.

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

2 comments

  • mkent

    I’ve got to make a few comments on this broadcast as well.

    1) The OIG report concerned the engines and boosters for the SLS made by Aerojet Rocketdyne and Northrop Grumman, respectively. Neither Lockheed Martin nor Boeing have anything to do with these contracts.

    2) The Space Force’s contracting with private companies to build satellites is nothing new. The satellites in question will replace the DMSP satellites built by Lockheed Martin. Almost all Space Force satellites are built by the private sector. For example, the WGS, MUOS, AEHF, GPS, SBIRS, and CBAS satellites are made by Boeing, Lockheed, Lockheed, Lockheed, Lockheed, and Boeing, respectively. Even the NRO’s spy satellites are built by the private sector.

    3) Virgin Orbit’s demise was caused by their own mismanagement, not by the UK regulators. Nobody made them suspend launches while waiting for a UK launch license. They could have submitted the license application and continued to fly from Mojave while they waited for approval. (You didn’t see SpaceX suspend launches from Florida and California while waiting for their Boca Chica launch license.) Virgin Orbit chose to sit around and wait. That’s on them, no one else.

    In addition, Virgin Orbit chose to devote a staff of 700 people to developing larger launch vehicles before their first vehicle was even cashflow positive. They only laid off those people to focus on flying LauncherOne with their remaining staff of 100 people just two weeks before declaring bankruptcy. Had they deferred development of other vehicles until LauncherOne was financially stable, they would have had *many years’* of money left right now. The UK regulators didn’t force Virgin to do this.

    They chose these paths themselves, and they were fatal.

  • GeorgeC

    mkent,
    What do you think of this whole ALTO thing, Air Launch to Orbit? The two companies that were doing it, were using some rather old aircraft. Both of which aircraft were very expensive to design, manufacture, flight certify, then adapt for rocketry. Even for custom built aircraft you might have only a few compared with the competition making boosters by the dozens.

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