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.


Biden to unveil first Webb science image today

This should be entertaining: NASA today announced that the unveiling of the first science image from the James Webb Space Telescope has been moved up to later today, so that President Joe Biden can do the unveiling from the White House. From the NASA tweet:

We can’t contain the excitement for @NASAWebb’s first full-color images!

On Monday, July 11 at 5pm ET (21:00 UTC), President Biden will unveil one of the space telescope’s first images of deep space as a preview of what’s ahead.

It appears that the picture Biden will use in this photo op will be the only deep field cosmological picture scheduled for release:

SMACS 0723: Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, permitting a deep field view into both the extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations.

The remaining four images will still be released on July 12, 2022, as originally planned.

The live stream of this event will be broadcast on NASA TV.

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

8 comments

  • Tim Kyger

    Biden Administration is really clutching at straws here to find *something*, ANYTHING, that might be positive and MIGHT also then help their poll numbers. Sheesh. I can’t wait to see what they have written for President Drooler and how he handles reading it.

  • Steve Richter

    I assume the images will be colorized and brightened for dramatic effect. Which is why I discount the spectacular images take by Hubble. Is that wrong?

  • John

    Ron Bergundy with dementia showing us an IR telescope image. Truly an interesting time to be alive.

  • JhonB

    Hey look, other presidents have tried and failed to get this project off the ground, but it took Biden to get this thing in the air. (Said with tongue firmly planted in cheek)
    Do you think Biden will know which way to look or what he is looking at?

  • Ray Van Dune

    Reminds me of the NASA stunt Bubba pulled…

  • Steve Richter: Though you are correct that the images are manipulated to bring out details and make them look great, you are wrong to discount them, especially the Hubble photos.

    Hubble’s images are mostly optical, so the colors correspond roughly to what the eye sees. They also provide a wealth of information not previously seen.

    Webb’s images will be infrared, so all the colors are false, chosen likely to correspond to different infrared wavelengths. However, the resolution and details will still be magnificent and unprecedented, revealing knowledge never known before.

    I have been a long time critic of the Webb project, for many reasons. I however celebrate the telescope’s successful launch and use, because it still will show us things behind the black we have never seen before. The images to come take us where no one has gone before.

  • GaryMike

    Watching tody’s White House’s initial image reveal, it looked like ‘just’ another Hubble deep field.

    What bothered me the most was that Nelson appeared to be as topically clueless as Biden/Harris.

    “SLS, all the way!”

    Spectacular JWT image. Brandon did that.!

  • Concerned

    It’s wholly fitting that the person occupying the office during the largest increase of our debt in history reveals the output from one of the most overrun (and late) projects in NASA’s history. The difference is that all will be forgiven with JWST.

Leave a Reply

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