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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.


Firefly’s Blue Ghost ends its mission, having achieved all its mission goals

Blue Ghost's shadow on the Moon, with the Earth in the background
Blue Ghost’s shadow on the Moon shortly
after landing, with the Earth in the background.

Five hours after lunar sunset Firefly yesterday shut down its Blue Ghost lander, ending its mission after successfully completing all its assigned tasks in carrying ten NASA research payloads to the Moon and softly placing them on the lunar surface.

Firefly also captured imagery of the lunar sunset on March 16, providing NASA with data on whether lunar dust levitates due to solar influences and creates a lunar horizon glow that was hypothesized and observed by Eugene Cernan on Apollo 17. Following the sunset, Blue Ghost operated for 5 hours into the lunar night and continued to capture imagery that measures how dust behavior changes after sunset.

“Whether lunar dust levitates” is one of the biggest scientific mysteries about the Moon. Only one person, astronaut Harrison Schmidt, has observed the phenomenon during the last Apollo mission to the Moon, and numerous attempts since to confirm and better understand it have all failed for one reason or the other. The preliminary results of Blue Ghost observations will be announced at a press conference tomorrow.

Firefly is now gearing up for annual Blue Ghost lunar missions. The next is targeting a launch next year, and will also deliver payloads for NASA, the European Space Agency, and Australia.

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

One comment

  • Richard M

    For those who have not clicked Bob’s link, please do note that the next Blue Ghost mission is much more ambitious: 1) It is going to Lunar Farside, 2) It will have a radio emissions telescope built by DOE mounted on top, and 3) it is being accompanied by an orbiter, which is a joint vehicle with ESA, and which will help act as a relay communications with the lander while the mission is underway.

    Exciting stuff. Can’t wait to see it.

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