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.


North Korea on Wednesday closed access to the Kaesong Industrial Park, a joint factory zone with South Korea.

Bad news: North Korea on Wednesday closed access to the Kaesong Industrial Park, a joint factory zone with South Korea.

Experts on the Korean situation had noted that we shouldn’t take seriously the harsh language coming out of North Korea as long as Kaesong was in operation. Thus, this news is very bad indeed.

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

  • JGL

    At least we know that the North Koreans are reading the papers / internet news thats reporting on what they think and what their strategy indicators are, keeping the Kaesong industrial park open. In the end, IMO, they must establish K.J. UN as a war hero and accredited leader, and they are trying to wriggle out of the increased economic sanction pressures. Its unlikely that they get both.

  • wodun

    Either all of this will die down after our war games with SK end or the draft will be coming back and cutting the troop strength of the Army and Marines will prove to be folley.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Cutting the troop strength of the Army and Marines relative to what, exactly? Both are far smaller than they were during the Vietnam War era and also significantly smaller than they were even as recently as Desert Storm. But both are also more militarily experienced and capable than their older, larger versions.

    No draft is coming back. We were recently fighting on two fronts at once in Iraq and Afghanistan. Only Afghanistan remains an active war zone now. If necessary, we can easily muster what’s needed to settle the DPRK’s hash. North Korea has a smaller population than Afghanistan and that population is also less well-nourished. Even the Nork military is on short rations. The current U.S. military can handle the DPRK without too much exertion. If Piglet Jong Un is foolish enough to actually start something, I don’t think the response is going to involve many American boots on the ground anyway. Much more likely is a very punitive air campaign to ruin pretty much everything dangerous above the 38th parallel. The U.S. can do this as the Air Force, except for drone sorties, is not very busy in Afghanistan. Ditto the Navy. Plenty of spare capacity.

    Will Piglet actually bite? Beats me. But the track record established by previous insular, arrogant megalomaniacs is not encouraging. The German Kaiser, Hitler, Piglet’s own grandfather and Saddam Hussein – to cite four examples – all started ruinous wars they thought they could win quickly and didn’t do so. Baseless overconfidence seems to be baked into dictatorial DNA.

Leave a Reply

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