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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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription, which takes about a 15% cut:

 

4. Donate by check. I get whatever you donate. Make the check payable to Robert Zimmerman and mail it to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652

 

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.


December 15, 2020 Zimmerman Space Show podcast

The podcast for my 90-minute appearance with David Livington on The Space Show on December 15, 2020 is now available here.

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

6 comments

  • wayne

    Great show!

    tangentially, I’ll toss this in here…

    The American Rocketeer: Frank Malina
    JPL history documentary 2010
    https://youtu.be/jlNz634TjN0
    1:29:24

  • George C

    The show asked for a listener comment on green new deal rocketry. Spacex is well positioned. The propellant generation plan for Mars can work on Earth too. CO2 + H2O + Photon = CH4 + O2. If I may skip the balancing and the technical details which will be familiar to anyone who has studied the readily available web content; with much engineering to be worked out by Spacex.

  • Jay

    Bob,
    A question about what you guys talked about: a privately owned fifth space shuttle? I have read the paper for use of the shuttle’s external tank(s) to make into station, but never a private shuttle.
    I could not find anything on the search engines about this fifth shuttle. This really sounds interesting. Any names or dates would be appreciated.

  • Jay: I am working from memory, but I think Rockwell was the lead in proposing NASA build a private fifth shuttle for commercial purposes. I might have the company wrong, but no matter. The point is that NASA said no, unfortunately.

  • Jay

    Thanks Bob,
    I will look into that.

  • mkent

    Jay: It was even worse than that. Back before ULA there was another Boeing / Lockheed joint venture called United Space Alliance (USA) to process and maintain the Space Shuttle orbiters for NASA. One day the CEO of USA made the public comment that one day in the future they’d like to work out a deal with NASA where they could own the orbiters and sell NASA — and other customers — flights.

    The NASA administrator at the time (I think it was Goldin) was said to be so enraged at that idea that he called the CEOs of Boeing and Lockheed to have the USA CEO fired. He was.

    The Commercial Crew program really changed the culture of NASA.

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