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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.
 

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.


January 11, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold. Strange astronomy and planetary geology was the focus tonight.

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

4 comments

  • Maurice

    Robert, we should spend more time on this site on industry news. I pretty much consume most of the space news on aggregate sites, and it wasn’t until I hit Parabolic Arc that it hit me that everyone seems to have become an aggregation site not unlike reader’s digest – safe, bland, etc (anesthetized in other words). Just for s&g I went to the aerospace Corp’s site and YouTube channel, and I gotta tell you, there is a lot of exciting info there, if anyone bothers to report on it.

    Whaddyathink?

    Maurice

  • LocalFluff

    Bob here is a special blogger because he creates original content with his comments and analysis, much more than most others in the public space community. The “outreach” guys are boringly predictable. (Fraser Cain is great, but he’s aiming for children, which is good but not for me. Have you seen TMRO podcast by a couple working for SpaceX? In spite of some prominent guests, what a clown shop!) Some bloggers have a narrow obsession. Parabolic Arc is great but niched in another way than BTB. Most of its blog posts are easily available earlier on other sites and the commentary is often not very elaborate when it is not about Virgin Galactic or a few other subjects near to his heart, and then the reporting is really great.

  • LocalFluff

    To drive home my point about a blogger who cares about every post, and one who doesn’t so as much. This below is from Parabolic Arc. Without a comment. It is inexplicable as it is, still just thoughtlessly copy-pasted, as if by a bot.
    http://www.parabolicarc.com/2017/01/11/starliner-simulator-arrives-nasa-johnson

    Bob Z here wouldn’t post that story without asking the obvious questions. Add some content and analysis by himself.

  • Maurice

    Well, then I might as well do it myself. The difference is, I never intend for this to be my sole source of income. If you look at folks making their living from new media, you have to produce something worth reading every day, or you lose the “eyeballs”. Newspapers have subscribers that foot part of the bill even if the contents is “man bites dog”.

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