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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
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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.


Delta 4 Heavy moved to launchpad for Orion flight

In preparation for a December test flight of the first Orion capsule, the Delta 4 Heavy rocket has been positioned on the launchpad.

The unmanned Dec. 4 mission, known as Exploration Flight Test-1 (EFT-1), is designed to test out Orion’s critical crew-safety systems, such as its thermal-protection gear. During the four-hour flight, the Orion capsule will fly 3,600 miles (5,800 kilometers) from Earth, then come speeding back into the planet’s atmosphere at about 20,000 mph (32,190 km/h) before splashing down softly in the Pacific Ocean, NASA officials said.

Forgive me if I remain decidedly unexcited. I still believe SLS to be an enormous waste of resources that would be better spent onother things.

Posted on the road south of Phoenix.

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

5 comments

  • Pzatchok

    I need a bit of help.

    I can not find any explanation of just how the Orion capsule is to be used as a deep space vehicle.

    Is it just a jumped up version of the Apollo style system?
    Were as the re-entry vehicle(Orion) is just the temporary living/re-entry module and not intended as a long term living module.
    Does it just separate from the rest of the rocket and turn around to re-dock with the real deep space module?
    And if that is how its intended to work how is it any different than the SpaceX crew craft, or even the Dream Chaser? They can both be flown exactly the same way.

  • geoffc

    The capsule (Orion) is demarcated by the reentry heat sheild onthe bottom, just like Apollo and Dragon. The Service Module (maybe made by ESA based on ATV) is discarded and has no habitable space.

    Orion is bigger than Apollo, and a lot bigger than Dragon internally. Nonetheless, one room, and not a lot of room for a multi-month mission. Even if it had life support for it.

    Usual proposed missions suggest it would dock to something else to provide extra hab space, depending on the mission. Maybe two Orions docked to a hab module for redundancy.

  • Competential

    Two months until launch. I didn’t realize that these rockets sat out there waiting for so long.

  • Pzatchok

    So like I thought, it really isn’t anything more than what we have working already. At a far cheaper price. Far Far cheaper.

    So since it has to have the very same docking system as everything else we can use all the other vehicles to do its job. At far cheaper price and faster.

  • David M. Cook

    Rockets only wait for the government! Mr. Musk launches his as soon as they’re ready.
    Only 20,000 MPH? Apollo capsules were tested to over 25,000 MPH and they only went to the Moon. Sounds like Orion can’t hack the higher speeds needed for deep-space missions.

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