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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.

 

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Is SpaceX doing ocean salvage operations near Boca Chica?

Superheavy aft section being salvaged
Click for original source.

SpaceX appears to be recovering the Superheavy booster that soft landed off shore from Boca Chica during the sixth test flight in November.

On Saturday, footage, albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, showed the aft end of a Booster with most of its Raptor engines still attached, being lifted out of the water.

During that November flight mission controllers decided against attempting a chopstick recovery, and sent the booster to do a soft vertical spashdown just off the coast. The booster than fell over and was seen drifting south. It appears SpaceX has now mounted operations to recovery it, possibly in response to the complaints by Mexican officials about its rocket pieces showing up on the beaches. Company engineers likely also wish to take a look at the equipment for their own reasons.

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

6 comments

  • MDN

    My guess is they didn’t want anyone else to salvage some of ot surreptitiously. I’m sure many countries would like to get a Raptor engine or 2 to copy and do materials science testing on to figure out the exact alloys used.

  • pzatchok

    I am surprised they didn’t go out and recover it the night it fell in the ocean.

  • ” . . . albeit from a vantage point of someone who should not have been that close to the recovery operations, . . .”

    I don’t know about that. Ship tracking sites put the recovery operation about 50 nm off the Mexican coast, with a 0.25 nm (~1500 feet) clearance advisory. A stabilized long lens can get that kind of lo-res shot. A little surprised there aren’t a swarm of drones in the vicinity. Or, maybe there are; it’s international waters.

  • Blair Ivey: That sanctimonious commentary was from a NASASpaceFlight.com commentator. It certainly looked to me as if that was a long lens shot taken well away from the salvage operations.

    I guess NASASpaceFlight.com was simply resentful someone else was scooping them on the story.

  • Off topic. With Sunday the 56th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing, Pope Leo makes a call to Buzz Aldrin. Interesting piece in American Thinker. Cheers –

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/07/pope_leo_calls_up_and_congratulates_buzz_aldrin_on_the_54th_anniversary_of_the_moon_landing.html

  • Jeff Wright

    That was nice.

    Understandable, since there has always been a schism over which is more sacred-Earth of Sky?

    What is Gaia compared to Jove?

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