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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
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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.


Japan awards $32.5 million contract for lunar GPS-type satellite constellation to startup

Capitalism in space: As part of the multi-billion dollar fund the Japanese government has allocated to encourage private enterprise by new Japanese startups, its space agency JAXA has now awarded a $32.5 million development contract to the startup ArkEdge Space to design and fly a GPS-type satellite in orbit around the Moon, thus demonstrating the technology.

Under the agreement, ArkEdge Space will plan and design the mass production and operation of micro-satellite constellations to lead the development of a next-generation Lunar Navigation Satellite System (LNSS), a vital component to the International “LunaNet” initiative driven by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA) and JAXA. LunaNet seeks to establish essential infrastructure to support sustainable lunar exploration and foster the growth of the lunar economy.

The real significance of this contract award is that it signals JAXA’s growing shift from designing, building, and owning everything to simply becoming the customer who gets what it needs from the private sector. The Japanese government had established that fund for this express purpose, but JAXA has shown a reluctance to proceed, as it directly threatens its turf. This award indicates that reluctance is finally being pushed aside.

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

3 comments

  • Jerry Greenwood

    It will be interesting to see their approach to this.

    Am I correct that maintaining a stable orbit around the moon is difficult because the influence of the earth?

  • Jerry Greenwood: Lunar orbits ARE unstable, difficult to maintain, and eventually decay. However, it is not the Earth that is the cause. The cause comes from what scientists label “mass concentrations” or mascons within the Moon’s interior.

  • wayne

    ah, down the rabbit hole a little…

    “Orbits Around the Moon are Very Unstable”
    NASA (2022)
    https://youtu.be/0ayDBidFbDI?t=39
    (1:52)

    Old clip, but good graphics, and they mention a cube-sat called CAPSTONE, designed to test a “near-rectilinear-halo-orbit.,” which is supposed to be more-stable.

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