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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.


Live stream of SpaceX launch of two lunar landers

I have embedded below the live stream of tonight’s launch by SpaceX of its Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy, carrying a dual lunar lander payload, Firefly’s Blue Ghost and Ispace’s Resilience, scheduled for 1:11 am (Eastern).

Blue Ghost will take 45 days to reach the Moon, when it will land in Mare Crisium on the eastern edge of the Moon’s visible hemisphere.

Resilience will take a much longer route, not arriving at the Moon for four to five months. It will then attempt to land in Mare Frigoris in the high northern latitudes of the visible hemisphere. If successful it will also deploy its own mini-rover dubbed Tenacious.

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

  • Call Me Ishmael

    “Mare Figoris”

    Mare Frigoris.

  • mkent

    I can’t watch this one either. It, iSpace’s livestream, and NASA’s livestream all want me to sign in to prove I’m not a bot.

    I don’t have a YouTube account. I don’t want a YouTube account. I’m not getting a YouTube account, and screw you for trying to make me.

  • mkent: I don’t have a youtube account either. I have no idea why youtube is demanding you sign in. (I haven’t signed in to Google in almost a decade, and have no intention of doing so ever.) It doesn’t request this as far as I know on all the videos I embed.

    The problem clearly is at your end. I wish I could help, despite the rude way in which you made your problem known.

  • Call Me Ishmael: Typo fixed. Thanks.

  • Digital Night

    I’ve been seeing the sign in to prove your not a bot message more and more. It tends to be when I’m using a ISP that is doing Carrier Grade NAT and I’m sharing that one IP with dozens of people. Or if I’m using the company VPN service (which has the same effect). Just a data point to consider.

  • Max

    mkent;
    When the “sign-in” pops up, click/select on any alternative video which will start something playing, then click the arrow back to the previous screen you want to see… and the login screen will be gone. (at least it works for me)

    More more clicks, the more revenue for advertising and if they get people to login, even better. They’ll usually leave a work around just so people who don’t have an account can be counted as a click. Otherwise the former customers will leave and never come back… there’s far too many alternatives to risk annoying customers. (their public/private partnership guaranteeing monopoly government approval isn’t working out so well… they can’t even ban tick-tock from the American market! Especially with all those millions of dollars of bribes to Hunter)

  • mkent

    ”I wish I could help, despite the rude way in which you made your problem known.”

    My sincere apologies. For the record, my ire was directed at YouTube, not you, hence the reference to the iSpace and NASA (and also NASASpaceFlight) feeds, all of which were doing the same thing. But, regardless, my apologies.

  • mkent: Apology accepted. Some advice: If you are express ire, make sure you are very precise about what you say. And in general, emotional venting is counter-productive.

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