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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.
 

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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.


Nanoracks signs deal to be first customer for Canadian spaceport

Capitalism in space: Nanoracks announced yesterday that it has signed a deal with Maritime Launch Services, the Canadian company managing a proposed spaceport in Nova Scotia as well as the launch services of a Ukrainian-built rocket, the Cyclone-4M.

The company and spaceport are targeting 2023 for launch.

Spaceport Nova Scotia is being operated a little differently than most of the new commercial spaceports. Instead of offering its facilities to all rocket companies, its manager, Maritime, has partnered with the two Ukrainian companies, Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, that build the Cyclone-4M. They then offer the spaceport and rocket, as a unit, directly to satellite companies like Nanoracks.

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

6 comments

  • John E Bowen

    The higher latitude means higher inclination orbits, of course. However, that said, they will have a nice choice of headings free from islands downrange, vs. “threading the needle” required by some Florida launches.

  • Alton

    Interesting.
    What happens when Joe takes the Swiss deposit and the 20th Century New Red Army makes the Ukraine the Next Warm Water Port Extended Complex……..

  • wayne

    Russia massing troops on Ukraine border
    “i24 News,” November 14, 2021
    https://youtu.be/CKKPhTZAFkY
    5:17

  • George C

    Wayne, that video shows up as restricted/blocked for me.

  • wayne

    George C–
    it (still) shows up ok for me.
    Do a search for the exact title, which is “Ukraine: ‘Russia has 100,000 troops near our border'” But before you do that– clear your browser cache.

    bottom line– the russians have been massing troops & hardware near the Ukraine border for a solid 6+ months. In the past 3-4 weeks they stepped up heavy rail shipments of tanks and support equipment.

  • Jeff Wright

    Cyclone wears civilian clothes. In its fatigues, it was the SS-9 Scarp (R-36) “City Buster”….The first FOBS lobber. It a red Titan II.

    The similar SS-18 became Dnepr.

    The RS-28 Sarmat is their biggest liquid ICBM designed from the start for multiple payloads.

    The Zenit-like Soyuz 5 (Don? Sunkar?) would have been better. Soyuz 5 is an all Russian version of the Ukrainian Zenit. But they never made the four-nozzle RD-170 engines. Cut it in half, and you have the Atlas RD-180 which we did get blueprints to and could manufacture IIRC.

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