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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 23, 2021 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold in two parts.

To listen to all of John Batchelor’s podcasts, well worth your time, go 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

4 comments

  • Localfluff

    It was exciting to watch the launch of the JWST onboard the most sexy rocket in the world, Ariane 5, just now. I hope you didn’t miss it. The countdown as the very last Vulcain engine ignited on the Devil’s Island:
    “- Cinq, quatre, trois, dö, UNITÉ, feu! Allumage! Décolage!”
    https://youtu.be/PK_yguLapgA?t=48

  • Questioner

    Localfluff:

    I think the devil rides you! We cannot wish for Ariane 5 to fail tomorrow. Don’t be evil, aren’t you also interested in the scientific results of the James Webb telescope?

  • Localfluff

    @Questioner
    I am hysterically hopeful for the JWST’s success. And I am truly hopeful! Ariane 5 hasn’t failed in 15 years. And it is the most beautiful rocket. And as to the telescope, everything with it has already failed, and has been fixed safely here on the ground! There remains nothing more to fail, again. It cost $10 Billion and was delayed by 14 years for a reason. It has been fixed. It was difficult. I mean, try doing it yourself! Hands off. Everything is double plus okay now. It’s as with the LIGO gravitational observatory. When I first heard of it I thought that this cannot work, and payd no more attention to it. But it worked! Fantastically! Their famous paper had a thousand authors. Do I think that I am smarter than a thousand physicists who signed this Nobel Prise winning paper? It was a crazy idea. But it worked, and that’s enough. Not anymore. I learn. That’s also a way to use ones brain, it is good at it if one tries. And I am deeply impressed.

    JWST will see the first star that ever lit up our worlds. At the same time as it lits up! Through a quirk in spacetime. How can we do that? What are we? The answer will not be a slip up on the launch pad. Ariane 5 will do its do, as it has always have done. Or it will add to the English grammar in comparativum:
    Horrible. Terrible. JWST.

    The astronomer asks his creation:
    “- Mirror mirror in the sky, tell me what is furthest away!”
    And is answered by the Heavens, with:
    “- Furthest away from reality of all is your mind. You’re MAD!”

  • Jeff Wright

    I liked Ariane 4 the best-looks wise, with Saturn IB.

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