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.


August 16, 2016 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold. We discussed the journey of Curiosity of course. I also spent some time elaborating on some of the engineering advantages SpaceX has because of its success at vertically landing its Falcon 9 first stages.

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

  • Localfluff

    Red Dragon 2018 would land more mass on Mars than the sum of all other landers on Mars have!

    And if successful, it would prove that astronauts could be landed on Mars. Today. In a Dragon capsule ejected from a larger Earth-Mars transit vehicle. Although NASA claims that it is impossible to land humans on Mars without tens of tons and some huge, yet non-existent, inflatable heat shield. Reality will tell us who understand physics the best. Reality never cheats.

  • Orion314

    As long as NASA remains a politicians lap-dog bitch, it will never improve.

  • Localfluff

    Orion314
    Unless the politician is a space nerd! Newt Gingrich is as close we can get to that, I guess. He’s seriously educated and thoughtful. But he unbelievably said that he wants space solar power beamed down to Earth to replace coal power plants.

    So that pretty much settles it. NASA maybe does better as a lap-dog bitch than being kicked out of the House. A dog has to try to be happy with whatever it gets. And it’s still fed for survival. NASA is still alive. It still has got a chance. Gotta fight to the end.

  • Localfluff

    So this is a very unfair and evil way to sum it up. But it shows how the “space debate” goes around in the presidential elections. Even when a most respected and intelligent candidate tries to bring up the very reasonable idea of building a crewed base on the Moon. In MSM he’s immediately a lunatic.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLjBz5LdRK8

    No, no, there’s nothing in the blackness above your head at night. Don’t worry about those dots, they don’t exist. Nothing to see here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.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