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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.
 

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Ingenuity’s 12th flight successful

Ingenuity's shadow just before landing.

According to the Perseverance science team, the Mars helicopter Ingenuity successfully completed its twelfth flight on Mars early yesterday, making a short scouting round trip over an area called South Seitah to provide images that the team can use to plan the rover’s future route.

All told, Ingenuity flew just under 1,500 feet flying about 30 feet above the ground for just under three minutes. The picture to the right was taken just before landing, and shows the helicopter’s shadow on the ground. It is one of six so far downloaded. The remaining images will follow later.

The announcement was made on Twitter, and included some embarrassingly over-the-top prose:

The #MarsHelicopter’s latest flight took us to the geological wonder that is the “South Séítah” region.

South Seitah is hardly a “geological wonder”. It is a sandy area with some rocks and interesting geology.

I’m not sure why, but the Perseverance rover team seems prone to do this with their press releases and announcements. The claim they make over and over that Perseverance’s prime mission is to look for ancient life is junk Now they call a relatively undistinguished and small area on a crater floor a “wonder.”

Makes one think they somehow feel a need to justify what they are doing, something that is patently absurd. They are controlling a robotic rover and helicopter tens of millions of miles away as both explore a place on another planet no one had ever visited before. That certainly is spectacular enough, and does not need purple prose to justify.

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

  • Gary

    I look forward to the day we have helicopters exploring the Jovian and Saturnian moon systems.

  • Mark

    Perhaps Ingenuity will discover a real “geological wonder”. and name it ‘ Purpureus Pannus’..

    Here is a fun fact about the phrase ‘purple prose’ . According to Garner’s Modern American Usage, the phrase purple prose “derives from the Latin phrase purpureus pannus, which appears in the Ars Poetica of Horace (65-68 B.C.)”.

    Horace compared flowery writing to sewing patches of purple fabric on clothing. At that time, purple dye was so expensive only the most opulent of the pretentious upper crust could afford it.

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