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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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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.


Iran launches three satellites on single rocket

According to its state-run press, Iran today successfully launched three satellites in orbit, its two-stage Simorgh rocket lifting off from an undisclosed location within Iran.

This was Iran’s second orbital launch in the last week, and the third in less than four months.

The 2024 launch race:

7 SpaceX
6 China
2 Iran
1 India
1 ULA
1 Japan

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

7 comments

  • Questioner

    They are getting better and better, as this successful start proves. Iran has developed technologies in the area of missiles and guided missiles (especially drones), which should not be underestimated by the USA and Israel. This is not the only reason why Iran is a very interesting partner for other BRICS states such as China and Russia.

  • Col Beausabre

    The Russian/Iranian Bot spews again

  • pzatchok

    Any civilian drone with a guidance system can be reprogrammed. upgraded and up scaled to become a dangerous weapon of destruction.
    Camera guidance is easy with a chase plane staying just close enough to bounce the signal and to keep the signal time down to something reasonable.

    They could even go so far as to weaponize a civilian passenger plane and thus the military would take even longer to shoot it down. The IFF/friend or foe system could be moved to another plane. Any plane that could carry 5000 lb could carry a nuclear bomb. Even its radio communications could be bounced to a chase plane or now even AI’d to fool ground controllers.

    I hope our military think tanks would have already thought of this.

  • pzatchok

    Sorry if my post seems odd.

    My mind has been on the drone strike in the Mid East.

  • pzatchok

    It reminded me of the First Gulf War when my brother was in a Patriot battery in the area the missile strike killed all those solders.

    https://www.nytimes.com/1991/02/26/world/war-in-the-gulf-scud-attack-scud-missile-hits-a-us-barracks-killing-27.html

    My brother was there at the time and I thought he might have been one of them. He did not call for two days.
    He got to see the radar image of the attack and told me they the scud was intercepted but the warhead had already fallen off and was not targeted. The missile body was hit and killed. (This was confirmed weeks later.)
    The simple fact that it hit a barracks was just bad luck.

    This attack might also be down to luck, good and bad.

  • Questioner

    You Americans should really check what is happening with your extorted tax money. Approximately a trillion dollars in military spending per year (in comparison, space spending is actually a completely negligible trifle) is a long way from translating this incredible sum into the corresponding military capabilities. On the contrary: the US empire appears comparatively incompetent, and too weak to win. This is now clearly visible in Ukraine and the Middle East (Yemen). The only thing you can do is bomb (but hasn’t it always been that way?).

    American investigates where all these enormous sums of money are sinking into the military-industrial complex (“pork” to the power of three). It is your tax dollars, your work and your life that are being wasted.

  • pzatchok

    Questioner

    The US is not fighting in the Ukraine. Financing it is totally different. Unlike the Russians who moved troops into Syria and many other nations instead of just financing the side they wanted to win.

    As for how much money the US spends on its military. I want us to spend more. I want the US military to be the worlds policemen. i do not trust anyone else to do it.

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