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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
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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.


Cargo Dragon docks with ISS

The unmanned cargo Dragon that SpaceX launched on August 24, 2025 successfully docked with ISS earlier today.

At 7:05 a.m. EDT, the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft docked to the forward port of the International Space Station’s Harmony module. The spacecraft carried over 5,000 pounds of scientific investigations and cargo to the orbiting laboratory on SpaceX’s 33rd commercial resupply services mission for NASA.

It will remained docked for the next several months.

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

  • Dick Eagleson

    Actually, this Cargo Dragon will be coming back around the end of September. Cargo Dragons typical stay at ISS only long enough for the ISS crew to unload them and stash what was brought up, then reload them with whatever downmass needs to return to Earth. The typically month-long stays are about what it takes to do all of the manual stevedoring and warehousing needed at a pace that doesn’t overstress the crews who have to do it. It’s only the Crew Dragons that stick around for months because they have to act as lifeboats should anything occur requiring a quit exit of ISS by all aboard.

  • mkent

    ”Actually, this Cargo Dragon will be coming back around the end of September.

    Actually, this Cargo Dragon will be coming back around the end of December. In addition to its normal cargo duties this Dragon will be performing several orbital reboosts, and those are done over time as the effects of drag build up to lower ISS’s orbit.

  • Ray Van Dune

    In addition to returning reusable supplies and experimental results back to Earth, cargo Dragons can pack hundreds of kilos of trash into the “trunk” section of the spacecraft, where it will be incinerated during reentry, along with the trunk itself.

  • Dick Eagleson

    mkent,

    Thank you for the new orthopedic shoes – I stand corrected. :)

    Ray Van Dune,

    Cargo Dragons have brought back trash, but inside the pressurized volume, not in the trunk – or at least I can find no evidence this has ever been done.

    It would be tricky to do given that there is no way to place anything in the trunk from inside the vehicle. Doing so from outside would require air-locking out the trash and then using one of the ISS’s robot arms to stash it in the trunk. I’m not sure it’s even possible to do the last of these things.

    But if you want to buy me a second set of orthopedic shoes, feel free to find a source and provide a link.

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