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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.


March 27, 2018 Zimmerman/Batchelor podcast

Embedded below the fold in two parts. The first part of this podcast is definitely worth listening to. I go after NASA for both SLS and Webb, which seem to be projects in a competition to see who can last the longest without accomplishing anything. Both are now creeping towards project length’s exceeding two decades, and neither is close to flying.

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

  • Localfluff

    The reason NASA shifted focus to the Moon has to do with the difficulties getting an administrator approved. So they need someone who moonlights.

  • J Fincannon

    Bob,
    From your show featuring SLS and Webb, you made what was an apparent general statement about people at NASA.

    Do you really feel that at NASA “No one really cares if they actually build something that works.”?

    That is a pretty comprehensive generalization. I mean, it sounds like you are saying 100% of all workers do not care if something works.

    Also, both you and John stated NASA is a jobs program and pension program. I am not sure what the latter means. Pensions are not paid by NASA, but by the Federal government. NASA gets a certain allocation of jobs to do its multitude of missions. So, it seems that both of you are saying that none of the work at NASA is worth it and could easily not be done by NASA with nothing missed. Am I understanding you right? You both have investigated the entirety of NASA missions and can now generalize and say it is a 100% jobs program?

  • J Fincannon: I know you work at NASA and I know you do good work. I was expressing my disgust mostly with SLS/Orion/Webb and NASA’s management and didn’t parse my words as nicely or as perfectly as reality demands. Moreover, I thought I had said that “no one really cares if they actually build something that actually flies.” SLS especially is a waste. It is too expensive. It will never make it possible to explore the solar system. Linked with LOP-G, the only things these projects accomplish is to suck money from the taxpayer to pay for the jobs at NASA and at the big contractors.

    We all are personally responsible. Every engineer working on SLS knows its a boondoggle, and has gone along for two decades to get that paycheck. LOP-G is the same. Faced with working on this junk I would have quit to go do real work. (That is not false braggadocio. I have done exactly that several times in my life. It is the reason I don’t make a lot of money in what I do, but can sleep at night.)

    That so many continue working there for projects that are empty promises reveals to me their true priorities. I make no apologizes for that conclusion.

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