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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.


China plans first commercial rocket company

The competition heats up: A Chinese company has announced plans to start a new commercial rocket company to compete for the burgeoning space launch market.

China Sanjiang Space Group Co. is preparing to enter the commercial-rocket business with a launch slated for 2017, Xinhua reported Tuesday, citing the company’s chief engineer Hu Shengyun. Some Internet companies have expressed interest in collaborating on commercial launches, Hu said.

The Kuaizhou-11, translated as “fast vessel,” rocket is being developed by the Fourth Academy of China Aerospace Science & Industry Corp., a major missile supplier to the People’s Liberation Army, according to China Daily.

There is not much information at the link. The rocket was first launched in 2013, but not much has been revealed about it since.

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

3 comments

  • Tell me again why many in the US are clamoring for a centralized command economy, while the ChiComs are moving toward a free market system.

  • Edward

    Short answer:
    Some people want to be in control (or be controlled), and other people want success and prosperity. For the Chinese, its former rulers (e.g. Mao) wanted the control. For the current mob, they want more prosperity than in the past.

    Long answer:
    Some Americans want the control, and think that they can have both control and prosperity (e.g. they believe that socialism will work in America, or will work only after a capitalist system generates enough prosperity to make it seem to work), but this is an impossibility, because socialism deters hard work, and encourages each worker to expect the government to give him his prosperity. From each according to his ability (or willingness to work harder than the next guy); to each according to his need (and the left over productivity goes to the leadership). This is the lesson of the Pilgrims at the Plymouth Colony. They proved that socialism does not work, even in America, but that capitalism does. Their survival and prosperity under the capitalist system, after nearly half of them perished under Bradford’s socialist experiment, was the real reason for the first Thanksgiving.

    The problem is that many people are not learning the lesson of Bradford’s Plymouth Colony.

    Capitalism encourages hard work, ingenuity, and talent and requires that each worker make someone else a little more prosperous in order to become a little more prosperous himself. It is better for 300 million people to figure out how they each can make a little more prosperity for someone else than it is for a few central controllers to figure it out. The individuals are motivated and can rapidly adapt, while central controllers make sure that they prosper whether or not they succeed, and it takes months for them to get reports as to how well their efforts work (notice the US government’s various reports, such as employment; how they come out a month or two after the data is collected and how they are adjusted over time, to boot!).

  • Wayne

    Edward!

    Excellent commentary!

    >>Blair has a very interesting Blog. Check it out if you have some time.

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