To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.


House ignores request for more NASA money for moon mission

A House committee today approved a NASA budget that ignored the Trump administration’s request for $1.6 billion more money to support its attempt to land a manned mission on the Moon by 2024.

Instead, the committee shifted more money into earth science and Gateway.

Whether this budget is what ends up being enacted remains to be seen. It does appear however that Trump will have great trouble funding his Moon project. Sadly, that lack of funding does not mean the overall federal budget is coming under control. On the contrary, it appears the Democratic-controlled House simply wants to spend lots of money, but on different things.

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

  • Ian C.

    Earth science + gateway = establishment stuff.
    Moon 2024 = Trump stuff.
    They don’t want to give him this win, especially not during his second term.

    P.S.: Nothing against Earth science or better measurements of climate change. I don’t want to see it associated with liberal talking points; actually we have to free it from the politicization that poisoned those fields.

  • mike shupp

    This is a House Appropriations Committee, not an Authorization Committee. So what happened is that committee decided to provide funds for what was already in their hopper — namely the original Trump budget request from February plus the amendments given that subsequently. The size and scope of the Artemis project has not been approved by the House, and how much to allocate to it this coming year has not been decided by an authorization committee, so arguably the appro- privation committee has been operating as it should. There’s still plenty of time to amend NASA’s funding, either in the House or Senate, or Joint Conference sessions.

    Other than this being Democrats against Trump (and Bridenstein) this isn’t a real case of “Democrats Against Trump.” House committees have worked this way back during the Obama administration, the GW Bush administration, the Ciinton administration, and so on maybe as far as George Washingtons.

  • wodun

    Does this mean that Trump wont be getting his cut to Gateway funding?

    I think it is more likely that these lunar prospecting missions will get going than any type of “big” program. They can build them up incrementally to support larger (in scope, scale, and difficulty) missions as time goes on. They operate on shorter timelines, especially for the outcome, which fit in better with the budgeting process.

    But with Democrats giving more money to SLS/Orion/Gateway who knows? Just goes to show how little control Trump has over the process and how hard it would be for him to do what so many space nerds want in cancelling SLS.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *