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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.


NASA needs billions to get Lockheed Martin’s Orion into space

And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? The agency is asking for billions more to build the Orion capsule.

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

4 comments

  • Kelly Starks

    > And NASA thinks it can compete with SpaceX or Orbital Sciences? ===

    Certainly, after all – they judge the winners, and pork (and NASA inefficiency) are primary products to be maintained. If they were willing to just let L/M and the other contractors do their jobs, costs would go down by at least a factor of 4.

    As Rutan found when he and some other new space companies tried bidding to build Orion, they weer simply incapable of spending enough, and hiring big enough staffs. Designing and building it was well within their abilities, but they could not do all the federally required contractual overhead, and support all the NASA “oversight”. So they had to bow out.

    Even Musk said SpaceX has little hope of competing and wining more then at best a token commercial crew flight.

  • Congress is demanding that NASA “refine its procurement, contract management, and oversight processes”. This sounds like the perfect opportunity to scrap the way Orion is being developed, define real requirements for an “exploration vehicle” and develop a milestone based fixed price contract, with independent financing requirements.

  • Kelly Starks

    I think you expecting a lot out of “refine”. Also NASA has as of yet – pretty much ignored that.

    Certainly L/M’s offer to develop Orion for a fraction of the cost if NASA just lets them do it themself to NASA specs, rather then NASA management get so heavily involved, hasn’t gotten much support ni NASA or congress as far as I can see.

    As for nidependant financing. Given NASA is pretty much the total market for maned orbital flight. They will have to agree to a contract that one way or the other pays for the development of the craft they demand.

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