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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black it now over. I sincerely and with deep gratitude thank all those who donated. Without your support I could not keep doing this, not so much because of the need for income to pay the bills, but because it tells me that there are people out there who want me to do this work. For those who did not contribute during the campaign, please consider adding your vote of support to Behind the Black, by giving either a one-time contribution or a regular subscription, in any one of the following ways:

 

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.

 

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China to build spaceport for its pseudo-commercial space sector

The new colonial movement: According to its newest five year plan, the Chinese government intends to build a new spaceport, the country’s fifth, dedicated solely for the commercial launches of the growing number of pseudo-commercial private Chinese launch companies.

Dou Xiaoyu, a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC), the top Chinese legislative body, and a vice chairperson at China Aerospace Science and Industry Corp. (CASIC), a giant state-owned enterprise, called for a Chinese commercial spaceport project in order to meet an expected surge in demand for space launch services.

Dou said China needs to strengthen domestic launch site capacity and continuously improve and optimize facilities. She also noted that launch-related policies and regulations have yet to be promulgated and perfected.

About a half-dozen privately funded entities in China have been using solid and liquid rocket technology in their effort to build commercially affordable rockets. This spaceport would provide them a location to launch devoted exclusively to their needs.

I call these companies “pseudo” however because they are not independent and private in the same sense you would use in the west. Their funding might be private capital, but they do nothing without the approval and supervision of the Chinese government. Thus, each is building only what the government allows them to build, or wants built. They might be able to then sell their rockets on the open market, but their purpose is shaped entirely by governmental orders.

Conscious Choice cover

Now available in hardback and paperback as well as ebook!

 

From the press release: In this ground-breaking new history of early America, historian Robert Zimmerman not only exposes the lie behind The New York Times 1619 Project that falsely claims slavery is central to the history of the United States, he also provides profound lessons about the nature of human societies, lessons important for Americans today as well as for all future settlers on Mars and elsewhere in space.

 
Conscious Choice: The origins of slavery in America and why it matters today and for our future in outer space, is a riveting page-turning story that documents how slavery slowly became pervasive in the southern British colonies of North America, colonies founded by a people and culture that not only did not allow slavery but in every way were hostile to the practice.  
Conscious Choice does more however. In telling the tragic history of the Virginia colony and the rise of slavery there, Zimmerman lays out the proper path for creating healthy societies in places like the Moon and Mars.

 

“Zimmerman’s ground-breaking history provides every future generation the basic framework for establishing new societies on other worlds. We would be wise to heed what he says.” —Robert Zubrin, founder of founder of the Mars Society.

 

All editions are available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and all book vendors, with the ebook priced at $5.99 before discount. The ebook can also be purchased direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit, in which case you don't support the big tech companies and I get a bigger cut much sooner.

 

Autographed printed copies are also available at discount directly from me (hardback $24.95; paperback $14.95; Shipping cost for either: $5.00). Just email me at zimmerman @ nasw dot org.

2 comments

  • Skunk Bucket

    I fear that with federal regulation necessarily on the rise during the Xiden residency, American companies will be less and less private as well.

  • Jeff Wright

    I think China is encourging ICBM competition in their own way. Soviet Design houses and public-traded capitalist companies alike can suffer from deadwood…so this sports-team/aggressor squadron approach is all about agility. Those with a knack for leadership serve in office. Engineering savants get bumped up to main space efforts. Deadwood go back from whence they came. Here in the West the self-promotion, car-salesmen, “synergy”-catch phrase types wind up over their betters…Dilbert style.

    There they become propagandists…but on a short leash. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

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