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THANK YOU!!
My November fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. As I noted below, up until this month 2025 had been a poor year for donations. This campaign changed that, drastically. November 2025 turned out to be the most successful fund-raising campaign in the fifteen-plus years I have been running this webpage. And it more than doubled the previous best campaign!
Words escape me! I thank everyone who donated or subscribed. Your support convinces me I should go on with this work, even if it sometimes seems to me that no one in power ever reads what I write, or even considers my analysis worth considering. Maybe someday this will change.
Either way, I will continue because I know I have readers who really want to read what I have to say. Thank you again!
This announcement will remain at the top of each post for the next few days, to make sure everyone who donated will see it.
The original fund-raising announcement:
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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.
awesome!
This photo looks like I’m looking at the point of a sharpened pencil.
This has the classic look of a karst sinkhole on Earth. But since karst implies limestone or dolomite (organic origin), that’s doubtful. I sure would love a reduced gravity rappel into it!
Karst on the slopes of Mons Pavonis, a shield volcano, would indeed be unexpected. The temperature of lava is quite enough to crack Calcium Carbonate out into Calcium Oxide and CO2. So, it’s a lavatube.
This sinkhole terraformed!!! https://fotos.subefotos.com/72122e2d6a1db60a4559b8d1da949215o.png