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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.


April 29, 2024 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay, who has returned from a weeklong work trip in “the People’s Republic of California.” This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

 

 

 

 

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

6 comments

  • GeorgeC

    The engines in the Long March 12; good old kerosene fuel made me think of this thread.

    What technology do you most remember disappearing from your earliest memory?

    For me it was the kerosene lamp used with the roadside construction site traffic barrel. This tech did not go away until the transistor controlled battery operated flashing light became available and cheap and reliable enough for the application. Old barrels continued to be used well into the 1970s almost 100 years after https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/thomas-edisons-patent-application-for-the-light-bulb

  • Andi

    Dialing 211 to get the long-distance operator to place an out-of-area call.

  • pzatchok

    Tube radios, Still have a few that work.
    Calcium carbide minors lamps
    Tobacco pipes and that smell. Reminds me of my great grandpa sitting on the porch after dinner.
    Real watches that wound up.
    The third peddle in the car. God I love those vehicles. And who remembers the floor starting switch? Or the high/low button.

    People who could read a road map without a GPS device.
    Shooting clubs in high schools.

  • pzatchok

    Miners not minors.

  • Dick Eagleson

    The Long March 5 is actually more powerful than the pesky Long March 5B because it’s basically a Long March 5B with an upper stage atop the core stage to power payloads beyond LEO. The Long March 5’s core stage doesn’t reach orbit, in consequence, and does not become a randomly falling nuisance.

  • Jeff Wright

    It’s like R-7 in that regard–parallel and in-line staging both—only bigger.

    It looks like upper-stage ice was impinging upon the tops of the strap-on booster foam—Columbia style.

    You guys see that?

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