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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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.


A look ahead to Sunday’s comet fly-by of Mars

On Sunday Comet Siding Spring will whiz past Mars at a distance of only 82,000 miles.

The article gives a good overview of where look to see the comet if you own a telescope, as well as what the many spacecraft at Mars are going to do to both view the fly-by as well as protect themselves from it.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

  • PeterF

    In the trilogy, “Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars” one of the methods used to bring water to Mars was to steer comets into an intercept, then blow them up into small pieces upon reentry. There were some other very interesting ideas in the series as well.

  • Max

    Life imitating fiction. I also read the series and enjoyed it very much. Real data mixed with good science and a touch of fantasy to make it almost plausible. (The terraforming of Mars with space elevators I mean.)
    In real life, Mars is not dense enough to hold a thick atmosphere. So I am hoping the author will tell the terraforming story for “White Venus” and ” Jeweled Saturn”.
    Venus is earths evil twin but has nearly the same gravity. With 90 earth atmospheres, it would probably terraform into a water planet. I’m thinking airogell constructed carbon fiber cities suspended from hydrogen balloons floating in the green zone miles above the hot surface. Since Venus’s day is longer then it’s Year, a space elevator probably wouldn’t work.
    Saturn on the other hand would be a fun challenge. With gravity only 10% more than Earths, humans could live there without much discomfort.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

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