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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.
 

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China successfully lands its reusable version of the X-37B

The new colonial movement: After only two days in space, China today successfully landed what appears to be its reusable version of the X-37B.

No photos of this spacecraft have been released, nor has China provided any specific information about its shape or design. What we know however suggests it is similar in concept to the unmanned, pick-up-truck-sized X-37B.

Apparently this short flight was to test its ability to reach orbit and then return autonomously. According to the state-controlled Chinese press, it did so.

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

10 comments

  • Captain Emeritus

    Well, if the Chinese Communist state-controlled media says it happened, who could have any doubts?
    Have the officially endorsed Hiden Biden yet?

  • Phill O

    Amazing what American technology can do!

  • wayne

    The sooner we pre-emptively strike these communists, the better.

    Minuteman III
    https://youtu.be/S-V6MZlyCqE
    2:22

  • wayne

    William L Shirer Reports From Berlin, Germany
    September 7, 1939
    https://youtu.be/s87hf__p2PM
    3:02

  • sippin_bourbon

    In 1939, there were, sadly, folks that looked favorably on “Herr Hitler”. Fortunately they were few enough that when we entered the war, they provided no real obstacle to our war effort.

    Consider today however. If, God forbid, a conflict with China broke out tomorrow. How many would take to the streets in favor of China? How many corporations would be useless in a war effort, because their manufacturing is in mainland China. How many of those would pressure the government to simply concede to whatever China’s military goals were.

    I shudder at the thought.

    I do not think we would have many allies if we made a pre-emptive strike. A cold war posture is better. Build our relationship to India, and Australia. Remind Japan that in any war with China, they are an easy target for them, and to stand by us. Give anyone working in China tax breaks to move home or to India. That would be a start.

  • wayne

    “Right Here Right Now’
    [Jesus Jones]
    November 9, 1989
    https://youtu.be/GYPBt4fZOUI
    3:17

    that being said,
    “Carthago delenda est.”
    [Carthage, must be destroyed]

  • pzatchok

    An open internet to China will do more to changing China than any war could ever do.

    Attacking China in any fashion will only galvanize them into a more united people wanting to follow a heavier handed government.
    But an open internet will show them what the rest of the world thinks of them and their government and with time maybe they will change their government from inside.

    In the mean time China is no military threat to anyone but those on their boarder who are to small to fight back.
    They do not have the deep water transport capability to move 500,000 men without someone noticing.

  • LocalFluff

    @pzatchok
    Elon Musk is working on it, Starlink. If the Chinese are able to get and use antennas for it, it could really destabilize their government. Btw I see rumors online that the Winnie the Pooh emperor is cleansing and cracking down. Things seem nervous over there.

    And the best time to strike militarily against China is now before they have better capability to strike back. The best wars are one sided.

  • wayne

    There are 90 million CCP cadre members that control the slave-state-gulag known as China. They have to go, all-the-way.
    I had to listen to globalists for the last 40 years, tell me sucking up to chinese communists would magically turn them into republicans. Their only reason for existing, is to enslave the entire world.

  • wayne the joke

    wayne the joke should go to china and see what is happening there. western fake news media have brainwashed your thoughts and minds.

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