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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.

 

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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.


Airbus to eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions

Airbus has decided that through 2026 it will eliminate 2,500 jobs in its space and defense divisions.

The Airbus cuts come just months after it said in its second-quarter earnings report that the space division was affecting its financial performance. In those earnings, it took a charge of 989 million euros ($1.08 billion) against the space business, relating to an audit of costs in the division and projected lower revenues.

According the company’s press release, the cuts will be targeting what appears to be a bloated management structure.

Intended measures will include creating a more effective and efficient organisational structure for the Division, especially with regard to headquartered functions.

The company does not plan to lay off anyone against their will. Instead, it will work out a buy-out program, the details of which are not yet known, that will encourage employees to leave voluntarily.

The issues here are probably related to the failure of the Ariane-6 rocket, which though now operational is too expensive to compete effectively in the modern launch market. Though it is built by ArianeGroup, a joint partnership of Airbus and Safran, its losses will percolate back to Airbus itself. That the cuts will target upper management also makes sense. Why does Airbus’s space division need a large payroll at its headquarters if it has shifted its space operations to the subsidiary ArianeGroup?

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

  • M. Murcek

    The industrial part of the MIC is at the mercy of gummint spending. While military budgets in the west have never been bigger, most of it is absorbed by the administrative blob and never makes it to the plane and bomb factories. This wont get better. Ever.

  • AO1

    “The company does not plan to lay off anyone against their will. Instead, it will work out a buy-out program,”

    This is likely due to employment laws in France (& EU) and strong Union presence.

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