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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.


Mauna Kea visitor center reopens

The visitor center on Mauna Kea was reopened this weekend after a month closure that supposedly forbid access by the public.

And yet, for that entire month, the state has allowed the protesters opposing construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) to remain camped across the street.

To me, this illustrates where the state’s loyalties lie. They might talk a tough game, but they are really doing nothing to enforce the law and the legally negotiated agreements between the astronomical community and the various Hawaiian cultural institutions that had agreed on the conditions for building TMT. By allowing the protesters to continue to break the law and set up house on the mountain, the state is saying they really want construction to cease.

I say, maybe the time has come for astronomers to agree, and move lock, stock, and barrel south to Chile. In addition, maybe tourists should consider other places to visit, rather than a place that exhibits such hostility to outsiders.

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

  • Frank

    More liberal sanctioned law breaking.
    Occupy Hawaii.

  • Cotour

    Unrelated but related:

    I watched a very beautiful helicopter fly over of all of the Hawaiian islands the other night, stunning! From the youngest, the big Island, of about 800 thousand years old, to the oldest, about 6 million years old, you can plainly and dramatically see the effects of erosion on the islands, the youngest is very big and very lush in vegetation and as you go North you can see how the islands are worn down by the atmosphere and erosion until you get to the oldest which is almost like a flat desert compared to the most Southern island.

    Q: Since erosion is obviously diminishing and “threatening” the islands existence and is “adversely” impacting the environment of the Hawaiian people shouldn’t the government declare erosion as one of the most important issues to address and control? Is erosion a national security threat?

  • Nick P

    “Since erosion is obviously diminishing and “threatening” the islands existence and is “adversely” impacting the environment of the Hawaiian people shouldn’t the government declare erosion as one of the most important issues to address and control? Is erosion a national security threat?”

    Perhaps the EPA should ban it?

  • Cotour

    There are islands to the North that were above sea level and that are very much under water as we speak, islands that have been “destroyed” by the atmosphere and erosion. The logic would follow that if we in fact control the climate to what ever degree that this would be something to be looked into to stop this threat.

    The verifiable evidence does seem to indicate a valid threat to the security of the United States and the world for that matter and it should probably be looked into. Unlike “global warming” there is no question that this erosion threat exists.

    I reiterate that it should always be the policy of government and industry to execute the highest levels of proven technology and developing technology in order to produce the cleanest energy and other industrial activities, in other words pollution.

  • Nick P

    “I reiterate that it should always be the policy of government and industry to execute the highest levels of proven technology and developing technology in order to produce the cleanest energy and other industrial activities, in other words pollution”

    So in other words, we should be going 100% nuclear.

  • Cotour

    Its never a good thing to think about things in such absolute terms, there is stability in diversity as a general rule. Many reasonable ways to skin the energy cat.

  • Steve

    Not only should we be building Nuclear plants, we should be spending money on fusion research instead of windmills……

  • I lived in Honolulu in 2000 while working on a Federal contract. I witnessed open racism and bigotry on the part of some Polynesians, to the point that I had equipment stolen from the job site and was confronted about why we didn’t hire Hawai’ians for the job (answer: because there weren’t any qualified people available). If you’re White and visiting Hawai’i, it’s probably a great place: if you live there; not so much. There wasn’t a week that went by where there wasn’t some sort of agitation against people of pallor.

    King Kamehameha is one of my heroes, but his people often fail to live up to his standard (MLK would understand). There’s only one place in Hawai’i I want to see, but other than that, I’ll take my money elsewhere.

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