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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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4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
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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.


China’s Mars orbiter and rover in trouble

Yesterday we reported a tweet from Scott Tilley that suggested engineers were having trouble establishing a communications link with China’s Mars orbiter Tienwen-1.

Today it appears that communications with China’s rover Zhurong have also not resumed following its winter hibernation from May until December.

The Post independently confirmed with two sources on Thursday that the rover should have resumed running by now, but no contact has been established.

Though Zhurong’s solar panels can be tilted to kick dust from them, during hibernation this is apparently not possible. Because the winter dust season this year was especially bad (killing InSight for example), it is possible that Zhurong experienced the same fate.

Zhurong had a 90 day mission, and instead lasted a year. Moreover, tt was never expected to survive a Martian winter. The achievement thus remains grand.

As for the Tienwen-1 orbiter, it would be a much bigger failure if communications cannot be re-established. China without question expected this orbiter to operate for years, even functioning as a communications link for later landers/rovers. Its loss will force a revision of later plans.

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

  • Col Beausabre

    Heck of big dust storm if the orbiter was affected

  • Col Beausabre: The winter season on Mars always fills its atmosphere with dust, and thus blocks sunlight. Though there were one or two larger storms this year, none were very unusual.

    Like Opportunity, Zhurong might simply have gone dead from lack of sunlight in the very cold winter temperatures. Once the batteries cannot be heated probably there really isn’t anything that can be done.

  • Max

    Col Beausabre;
    Thanks for the belly laugh!
    Or as the grandkids say, LOL

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