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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.


October 28, 2024 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

This is late today because I was attending an event at the local Tucson rocket startup Phantom Space. More on that tomorrow.

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

  • JWalsh

    Regarding the heatshield of the the Orion Capsule. IIRC, several years ago, this same Orion vehicle that was shipped back to AVCO Wilmington (Massachusetts) for checkout of the existing heat shield. Being too wide for normal freight, the Orion was flown by an ultrawide body aircraft (similar to the Super Guppy) from Cape Canaveral to Laurence G Hanscom Field, Bedford, Massachusetts, then trucked to AVCO.

    The “keep the heatshield formula secret” story mimics a lecture I attended by Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the science payload on the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity. They had one of the rovers come across the re-entry heat shield of one of the rovers on the Martian surface, and asked if they (JPL) could use the RAT Tool to test the heatshield.

    Word came back from the heatshield owner (perhaps Lockheed-Martin? unsure) to please NOT test it. The heatshield makers were more concerned that their “secret sauce” might become public knowledge.

    The Steve Squyres lecture was presented at Clarkson University, an engineering school in upstate NY.

    The same tone of keeping trade secrets as secret seems to be at work here.

  • idi

    “NASA official says that it has found the root cause to the Orion heat shield damage on Artemis-1
    According to the tweet, the official also declined to disclose that root cause”

    As a taxpayer, I demand they revel what the problem is.
    Defunding NASA is starting to look good.

  • Jeff Wright

    Non-achievements? Ares I could have been Omega.

  • wayne

    Teri Garr (Dec. 11, 1944 – Oct. 29, 2024)
    Star Trek Original: Assignment Earth
    “Roberta Meets Gary Seven”
    https://youtu.be/FqYpMUHbPj8
    (2:57)

  • john hare

    The Ares 1 never flew Jeff. The 1X flight was a Shuttle SRB with a mock up segment and mock up upper material.

  • Jeff Wright

    The J-2, though heavy, would have worked–a rough ride, yes..but like Falcon, could have flown depressed trajectory.

    Griffin just didn’t like the EELVs pawned off on NASA, and thought Ares I would be what Falcon is now.

    I wish Squares should have ignored LockMart.
    Information wants to be free.

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