To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.


Another Earth just twelve light years away?

Another Earth just twelve light years 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

4 comments

  • Patrick Ritchie

    Fascinating. Assuming there is an earth like planet there and we could get to 25% of c you could make the trip within a human lifetime. That’s a lot of IFs, but it’s fun to speculate….

  • If we don’t destroy ourselves (I’m not particularly optimistic on that), and if we discover a suitable planet within, oh, say, fifteen to twenty light years, we’re going to find a way to get there. As far as sustaining a multi-generational program, there are a number of European cathedrals that took centuries to build. We can do it.

  • Pzatchok

    I have thought about this a bit.

    If we build a generational spacecraft whats stopping the occupants from choosing to just stay in space?

    Lets say it takes a lifetime to get to the next solar system. It might not have a suitable planet to live on but it will have suitable asteroids for materials and fuel.
    And that fuel/material will be needed to get to the next solar system.
    Well once we have made the leap frog like trip to a solar system with a suitable planet to live on.
    Whats to say the planet is life sustaining when we get there. It might take another lifetime in space orbiting that planet while we terraform it just enough to live on the surface. Seeding the oceans could take a while.
    And it will take several lifetimes for earth type biological life to change enough of the surface material to a suitable organic material for natural plant growth.
    You can’t just drop seeds onto sterile sand or rocks, add water and hope that something grows.

    Well by that time our children might just say goodby to those who want to stay on the planet and move onto the next solar system.

    As soon as we build a generational spaceship we are no longer a planet bound species. We are a space bound species.

    And here is a BIG question. Who gets to go? Not the people exactly but the society we choose to populate the ship with.
    A western society, Chinese communist, Muslim, or a random choice? Only let the nations who fund it on board? Or leave it up to random chance?
    What if some nut case extremist group doesn’t make the cut and decides to stop the project by force?

    I personally want my descendants to go. Carry my genetic structure and family name to the stars.

  • Evolution has two basic requirements: time and liquid water.

    Tau Ceti is a bright G-type yellow main-sequence star twice as old as the sun that probably has at least one planet in the liquid water zone.

    I expect it will be another hundred years before we find out much more. Will the theory of evolution survive?

    You make a great point Pzatchok. I expect settlers won’t be from a generation ship as much as from Oort cloud cultures continuing to expand outward.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *