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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.


June 20, 2025 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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

8 comments

  • Lee S

    I am very pleased Psyche is still on target… I own a few metallic meteorites, they are amazing to hold in hand and the melt pattern very clearly shows the direction of entry into our atmosphere. It will be amazing to see a “parent” body up close… I doubt it will be shiny, but will almost certainly be very different from the rubble piles we have visited so far.

    On a side note, this proves the need for redundancy on space missions. It is not widely spoken about, but the ESA Huygens lander on Titan only had 2 separate channels to return data, one of which failed. With no redundancy we actually lost half of the images and scientific data. Fortunately NASA builds things a little more robust.

  • wayne

    Lee-
    Have a “stony nickel-iron, pallasite,” from the Atacama Desert. Recovered in 1922. About an 8-gram specimen. Very nice. Triangular shaped polished 1/4 inch thick ‘slice.’

    And an “olivine-bronzite chondrite,” recovered in 1978 from Mexico, from an airburst; marble-sized, black, looks like puffed up lava.

    Breaking News:
    The United States struck multiple Iranian nuclear facilities…..

  • Edward

    wayne noted some “Breaking News: The United States struck multiple Iranian nuclear facilities…..

    Would these be the peaceful power plants that Iran has been making in order to use the uranium they are enriching? I keep not hearing Iran talk about these power plants and how far along they are. Iran has plenty of uranium for them, so why aren’t the power plants ready for their fuel rods?

  • Jeff Wright

    They saw what bunker busters did in Iraq and went deeper….developed great concrete.

  • wayne

    Edward-
    It was a mostly peaceful bomb-program.

  • Richard M

    Hello Edward,

    Well, in fairness, the plant at Bushehr seems peaceful. It’s not suited to enriching uranium anyway, as I understand it. That and the fact that it has hundreds of Russian technicians helping operate it is why the Israelis and the US left Bushehr off their target lists. I think it accounts for 3% of Iranian energy needs.

    But if the Iranians had stuck their nuclear ambitions to just Bushehr, we wouldn’t be where we are now.

  • wayne

    Enriching uranium is an electrically intensive process. Our WW2 era Oak-Ridge Y-12 separation facility consumed almost 30% of all electric produced by the Tennessee Valley Authority.

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