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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.


Japanese scientists complete inventory of Ryugu asteroid samples

In a press conference yesterday the Japanese space agency JAXA announced that scientists have completed their inventory of the samples brought back from the asteroid Ryugu by the Hayabusa-2 spacecraft, and are now ready to begin distributing those samples to scientists around the world for more detailed research.

JAXA has cataloged the soil samples brought back by Hayabusa 2 last December, by size, color and shape. From now, 269 researchers from 14 countries, including Japan and the United States, will conduct an in-depth analysis of the soil’s structures and components over the course of about a year.

As expected, the inventory found the samples had a large amount of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon atoms. Even before Hayabusa-2’s arrival, Ryugu had been catalogued as a “hydrated” asteroid, which means it was thought to contain a lot of hydrogen and oxygen, the basic elements of water. The inventory has now confirmed this.

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

  • Tom Billings

    Hydrogen and Carbon atoms make the sort of Hydrocarbons that would be found in the kerogens. These, under pressure and heat, generate oil and gas here on Earth, and would be excellent precursors for Methane at an asteroid. It will be interesting to see what the Oxygen is combined with, and how volatile each of these combinations is.

    The presence of Hydrogen in the shallow near-surface deposits that could be reached by Hayabusa makes for some optimism about volatiles being retained by Near Earth Objects that are easy to reach from high Earth orbits by ion-propelled space tugs. Now, if we can just get samples from several meters *below* the surface, we’ll know if we can get mines for water ice and carbonaceous volatiles set up, and how expensive that will be. I remember the Chinese were planning a mission to 2016 HO3, and I wonder how deep their samples will be taken from.

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