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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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Russian engineers pinpoint approximate crash site of Luna-25

Russian engineers have pinpointed the approximate crash site of Luna-25 on the Moon as the 42-mile-wide crater Pontecoulant G, located at about 59 degrees south latitude, 66 east longitude.

Researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics have simulated the trajectory of the Luna-25 mission, figuring out where and when it crashed into the moon’s surface, the institute said in a statement on Telegram. “The mathematical modeling of the trajectory of the Luna-25 spacecraft, carried out by experts from the Ballistic Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, made it possible to determine the time and place of its collision with the moon,” the statement reads.

According to the institute, the spacecraft fell into the 42-kilometer Pontecoulant G crater in the southern hemisphere of the moon at 2:58 p.m. Moscow time on August 19.

The planned landing site, in Boguslawsky Crater at 73 degrees south latitude and 43 degrees east longitude, was many miles away.

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

3 comments

  • Bob Wilson

    I think the lunar reconnaissance orbiter still flying around the moon. Perhaps they will try to make an image of the site. Probably will not be much to see, but will give some closure to the Russians.

  • Jeff Wright

    Is big secret
    Light at end of tunnel turn out to be train.

  • GaryMike

    Space exploration is hard, and expensive,

    Thank you for all attempts at trying.

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