To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.


Martian dust storm goes global

Data from orbit and from Curiosity at Gale Crater confirms that the dust storm that has shut down Opportunity is now a global storm, encircling Mars.

The Martian dust storm has grown in size and is now officially a “planet-encircling” (or “global”) dust event.

Though Curiosity is on the other side of Mars from Opportunity, dust has steadily increased over it, more than doubling over the weekend. The sunlight-blocking haze, called “tau,” is now above 8.0 at Gale Crater — the highest tau the mission has ever recorded. Tau was last measured near 11 over Opportunity, thick enough that accurate measurements are no longer possible for Mars’ oldest active rover.

This will be first global storm to occur on Mars since Curiosity landed in 2012, thus giving scientists the best opportunity to study such an event.

Meanwhile, Opportunity remains silent. This does not mean it is dead, but that it doesn’t have enough sunlight to charge its batteries. It might die during this storm if the storm lasts long enough, but we won’t know one way or the other until the storm finally eases.

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

  • wodun

    This is why we need nuclear power.

  • Orion314

    The electric universe model contends Mars global dust storms tie in with opposition of earth.

  • wayne

    wodun–
    nail on the head. Every probe should be powered by internal nuclear.

    –a repeat from me, but lots of good factoids contained therein:

    Mars Dust Storm News
    JPL teleconference 6-13-18
    https://youtu.be/fIKxdRFx2Wo
    (1:00:21)

    –Teleconference reports the “Tau” was “11.5,” and they have pictures of what the sun currently looks like from the surface.
    -Opportunity is powered by solar cells, but in the main instrument bay there are multiple small nuclear units that provide 8 watts of heat-energy to the electronics. (This is the first time I’ve heard this described, and I am unclear on specifics.)
    -“Maximum design low-temperature is -50C, maximum operating low-temp is -40C, and during this storm they expect low temps to bottom out at -37C.”

    –On the upside, from past storm experience– accumulated dust on the optics has tended to shed itself almost completely during good weather. The camera’s are finely calibrated and any remaining dust aberration can be taken out digitally in post-production.

  • wayne

    Orion314–
    can you give me the 5 cent tour on the “Electric Universe?”
    I see a lot of youtube stuff listed with that Topic, but I’ve never delved deeply.

  • BSJ

    Wayne,

    Plug nickel tour. In the electric universe, impact craters are formed by lightning, not impacts…

    Opportunity was designed to only last 90 days. Would have been a waste to send it with a nuclear source.

  • wayne

    BSJ-
    thank you, and…point taken.
    -just a personal preference for over-engineering. (I only play an engineer, on the interweb)
    And yes– can’t beat the lifespan!

    tangential– (we are, living in the Future)
    “Mariner 6 and 7 Programs Missions to Mars,”
    JPL 1969
    https://youtu.be/1rqjywAXYks
    20:46

    [from the Atlas Centaur Heritage Film Collection which was donated to the San Diego Air and Space Museum by Lockheed Martin and United Launch Alliance. The Collection contains 3,000 reels of 16-millimeter film. ]

  • BSJ

    Yeah, some of the E-Universe stuff sounds like it makes a lot of sense. Other times, not so much!

    I checked out when I read about that part of the “theory”.

  • Orion314

    look up thunderbolts project , on youtube , a starter for the electric universe model

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *