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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.


May 15, 2023 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay.

 

 

  • Several Mars images, here and here, from China’s Tianwen-1 Mars orbiter
  • All are features at or near the Martian north pole.

 

 

 

  • Fifty years ago today Skylab was launched on the final Saturn-5 rocket
  • During the launch a side insulation panel was ripped off, destroying one of the station’s two main solar panels and also allowing the station’s temperature to rise to unmanageable levels. The other main solar panel meanwhile failed to deploy in orbit because of a strap. Astronauts led by moonwalker Pete Conrad did a series of spacewalks to free the stuck panel as well as install a new umbrella-like cover to bring the station’s temperature down to the correct levels. These successes made it possible for three crews total to occupy Skylab over the next two years.

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

  • James Street

    I’m not sure what this means… was Musk involved with Epstein and if so, how deep. Is the swamp blackmailing him?

    Elon Musk Was Issued Subpoena in JPMorgan Epstein Suit
    ByBob Van Voris
    May 15, 2023
    Elon Musk was issued a subpoena by the US Virgin Islands in its lawsuit accusing JPMorgan Chase & Co. of knowingly benefiting from Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking.
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-05-15/elon-musk-was-subpoenaed-in-jpmorgan-epstein-suit-by-usvi?leadSource=uverify%20wall

  • Mitch S.

    First Gerstenmaier, now Lueders.

    Makes sense for SpaceX but I wonder how Gerstenmaier and now Lueders will feel about their time at SpaceX vs NASA.
    Of course now they won’t knock NASA as it’s an important partner/customer but I hope an Eric Berger or Bob Zimmerman is poking around and taking notes so the next chapters of the SpaceX story can be accurately told.

  • Tom Billings

    James asked:

    ” … was Musk involved with Epstein and if so, how deep. ”

    This seems a deep and wide dredging suit to benefit the Democratic Party, by dragging in as many people who are on Chase’s books as possible, to distract from the politicians that were in Epstein’s books. Theoretically *I* could be dragged in, because *I* have an account with Chase as a buffer for investment to transactions like paying bills. Musk is prominent, and a target of Democrat coalition allies, and may have had a similar account, though of much larger size. It sounds like Chase asked Epstein about musk, and whatever he told them did not scare them off of Musk.

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