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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.

 

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Climate change protesters mob local UK spaceport council

Mob rule: A local Cornwall council meeting yesterday approved a $10 million grant for a new spaceport despite protesters screaming and yelling in the gallery and outside, forcing the meeting to end early.

After deciding not to defer a decision, councillors voted to grant £10.32m of capital funding to the spaceport by 66 to 34, with one abstention.

The gallery then erupted with chants as protesters launched paper airplanes. The chamber was then cleared of councillors and the meeting adjourned as the crowds continued to chant and shouted at councillors as they left saying things like “shame on you”. [emphasis mine]

Police were required to maintain order.

I have highlighted the vote count to note that these protesters clearly did not have that much real support. Their protests however remain a good intimidation tactic, so expect more protests if this project continues, especially because it appears the climate change crowd is beginning to behave as if any new technology is a threat. From the article it appears the protests were dominated by global warming activists from the group Extinction Rebellion. Also, “the groups Red Rebels and deathly-looking Penitents were joined by locals carrying signs and flags.”

I grant that it might not make sense for this local council to spend so much money for a spaceport, especially because they are doing it mostly for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. They are likely to find the money wasted.

The protests however are mindless and an act of bullying, and are not the way to debate this or any subject sanely.

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

4 comments

  • ” . . . deathly-looking Penitents. . .” Checking calendar: yep, 2019, not 1319. Do these people even know what a penitent is? What ‘sin’ do they think they’ve committed? If they feel (Feelings. Nothing more than feeeelings), guilty about nothing more than being born into Western civilization, that’s a level of self-loathing that precludes rational thinking. This should be pointed out to them. Publicly and often.

  • Edward

    Blair Ivey asked: “What ‘sin’ do they think they’ve committed?

    Well, they probably drove to the protest, using powered transportation. The signs look like they were made from items that were manufactured using power, as were the costumes. Using power in any way, shape, or form is not environmentally friendly and will surely lead to the proposed demise of the world at the end of 2030.

    By the way, now that we are 1/5th of the way through the century, how are those previous predictions coming along? You know, the predictions of rising sea levels and skyrocketing temperatures by the end of the century. Is the sea rise on schedule? Or the temperature rise? How about the end of snow and the total melting of the arctic ice in summer; weren’t those supposed to have happened by now? There’s a little snow in the mountains, around me, and having this snow in November is earlier than anyone that I know can remember.

    Hmm. I’m feeling a chill. I think I will turn up the thermostat.

  • Dave

    Society at large has gotten more wealthy. That [negative] phenomenon of “idle rich” can extend down deep into the middle class. Combine that with an absence of God, and some handy indoctrination by the educational establishment reinforced by pop media, and we have these Red Rebels, Penitents, and over here, Antifa. Wayward youth looking for purpose, putting on brown shirts and cleaning up society fills that role.

    Blair is right about a level of self-loathing. Combined with their self-claimed police powers, they will do a lot of harm if it continued uncorrected.

  • Questioner

    Dave:

    I add here a resource for your study and in order to present to you what caused the mess.

    Paul Gottfried and Tom Woods: Cultural Marxism and the Frankfurt School

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhle0Jdnecc

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