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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 24, 2017 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold. A look at what I see are the first real hints at Trump’s NASA policy, both in terms of space exploration and climate.

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

One comment

  • LocalFluff

    I agree that the SLS will most likely fly because so much costs have been sunk into it and it makes little political sense for Trump to pick a fight against its GOP proponents in Congress. It can bring the Europa mission to Jupiter in only 2 years fly time! So that is set to happen during a second term. It could land astronauts on the Moon within 8 years too, in order to prove a point against the Chinese. But the Lunar lander then would be a one off development with no second use, since the Dragon wouldn’t need a landing stage, just extra fuel tanks and a return vehicle. Or the Orion could be replaced by a Lunar Dragon plus a return vehicle. A few tons would be saved just by getting rid of the launch abort tower.

    December 2022, 50 years after Cernan left the Moon, would be a deadline to consider for a Lunar landing. SLS+Orion is a historical reenactment project anyway :-) Then the tens of billions the project has cost can be divided by the Europa mission, one crewed Lunar flyby and one Lunar landing. Especially the Orion is wasteful and useless.

    A persistent Lunar exploration program starting soon could possibly be done by the Falcon Heavy upgraded with a Raptor upper stage engine, either with two of them docking in LEO, or by landing cargo including the return vehicles separately from the crews. But neither SLS, Orion, Falcon Heavy or Dragon are suitable for Lunar missions. It’s such a mess of equipment mismatch.

    Good news is that Elon Musk was among the 12 industry tycoons that met with Trump on day 1 Monday. His track record and big thinking could very well get this president’s attention. Elon Musk twitter-praised Rex Tillerson for being conscious about the climate! This proofs that Elon Musk knows how to play politics, that he adapts to the changing rules of the game (claiming that a life long oil man is against CO2 emissions is like claiming that wolves are vegetarians, i.e. pure politics).

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