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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’s radar ship finally docks in Sri Lanka

Despite objections by India and an initial refusal by the Sri Lanka government to allow a Chinese military communications/radar ship to dock at one of Sri Lanka’s ports, the ship was finally allowed to dock yesterday.

Sri Lanka, which needs the support of both India and China as it struggles with its worst economic crisis in decades, initially granted the ship permission for a five-day replenishment stay in Hambantota, from Aug. 11.

It later asked China to delay the vessel’s arrival, citing the need for more consultations.

Yuan Wang 5 will now berth for only three days to stock up on fuel, food and other essentials, said an official at the port who declined to be identified as he is not authorised to speak to the media.

The ship is used by China to track satellites, rockets, and missiles, both its own and other nations.

Sri Lanka is caught between a rock and a hard place. The country is bankrupt, its citizens facing starvation due to the previous government’s imposition of numerous green environmental policies that destroyed its agriculture industry. It has also taken aid from both India (providing military hardware) and China (which built the port and holds a 99-year lease to operate it), and neither looks kindly at the other.

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

  • Phill O

    What does this say about the WEF’s push to reduce farming outputs?

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “The country is bankrupt, its citizens facing starvation due to the previous government’s imposition of numerous green environmental policies that destroyed its agriculture industry.

    Look at that. Green environmental policies are destroying agriculture around the world. The Dutch are doing this same thing with its bogus “nitrogen crisis.” The U.S. is doing something similar with fertilizer regulations. What other countries are also destroying their own agricultural industries? Fortunately, it is not as though we need food to eat.

    Oh, wait …

    Of course, the Chinese are exempt from going green, so they will end up feeding the world, rewarding friends and punishing enemies.

  • The BBC reported that Yuan Wang 5 (Internet translation ‘ to accuse wrongly; to treat unjustly’) was a ‘research ship’.

    And British aircraft carriers are ‘through-deck cruisers’ (that’s a real thing, folks).

    The ship’s name gives the game away.

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