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You want to know the future? Read my work! Fifteen years ago I said NASA's SLS rocket was garbage and should be cancelled. Almost a decade ago I said its Orion capsule 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.

 

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ISS crew to return on Wednesday January 14, 2026

The present four-person expedition 11 crew on ISS, which has one member with an undisclosed sudden health issue that needs addressing on the ground, will undock and return to Earth on January 14, 2025 in SpaceX’s Endeavour capsule.

NASA and SpaceX are targeting no earlier than 5 p.m. EST, Wednesday, Jan. 14, for the undocking of the agency’s SpaceX Crew-11 mission from the International Space Station, pending weather conditions. … NASA astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Kimiya Yui, and Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Platonov will splash down off the coast of California at approximately 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, Jan. 15.

Mission managers continue monitoring conditions in the recovery area, as undocking of the SpaceX Dragon depends on spacecraft readiness, recovery team readiness, weather, sea states, and other factors. NASA and SpaceX will select a specific splashdown time and location closer to the Crew-11 spacecraft undocking.

NASA has released no information about the medical issue that canceled a spacewalk and prompted the early return of this crew. We do not even know the name of the impacted astronaut.

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

  • Richard M

    We do not even know the name of the impacted astronaut.

    I am, of course, an enemy to speculation. But I was as amused as Scott Manley when he noted last night that the latest update from the ISS account on X linked to a careful summary of what three of the astronauts of Crew-11 were doing yesterday on the station, passing over in complete silence what the fourth was up to.

    https://x.com/Space_Station/status/2009741294713586128

  • GeorgeC

    Is all the 10 day wait driven by weather and logistics and orbital mechanics? Or like, “I am sick and managements says I need to get to an emergency room, but I want to give you guys a few more days to do some more work up here..”
    Maybe a book or report will come out in a few years, which would be good to help prepare the public for the more extreme conditions in long trips to Mars and the ethics of exploration.
    Robert Zimmerman has probably written about this.

  • GeorgeC asked, “Is all the 10 day wait driven by weather and logistics and orbital mechanics?”

    Read the NASA release I link to. It explains all.

  • Patrick Underwood

    Richard M, any extra info for us luddites not on x?

  • Richard M

    Hi Patrick,

    Only thing I saw today on X was NASA announcing that Crew-11 will undock from ISS no earlier than 5pm ET on Jan. 14, with splashdown off California targeted for early Jan. 15.

    No one seems to be talking about the identity of the ailing astronaut. Yet. I think it’s looking increasingly likely who it is, though just what is ailing him is unclear.

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