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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.


On the radio

I will be doing the first hour with George Noory on Coast to Coast tonight, talking about space and science stuff. Should be fun, as always.

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

2 comments

  • kelly

    you made the statement that we very definately went to the moon in 1969 and the photographs were real. In the 90’s Johnathan Frakes hosted a tv special where they showed that i one of the photographs the astronauts image was covering the hash mark that was ecthed into the lens of the camera, that photo was definately faked. I dont see why they would fake only one. Also, please explain to me how the spacesuits could deal with the rapid change in temperature of 350 degrees when the astronauts stepped from the shadow of the spacecraft into the sunlight.

  • Hi Kelly,

    1. Having written for the Science Channel and other television outlets, I never take very seriously any claims made by such shows, especially such extraordinary claims that images from the moon were faked. In fact, the extraordinary claim that the moon landings were faked will require an extraordinary level and quality of evidence before any reasonable person could take it seriously. So far, everything I’ve seen has been shallow, weak, and almost always easily disproved.

    2. How did the astronaut spacesuits manage to deal with the large shifts in temperature between lit and shadowed areas on the Moon? This is so easy it is laughable. The Apollo suits work the same way modern spacesuits work on ISS as the astronauts move from light to shadow and the station goes from day to night every 45 minutes. In fact, the actual temperature difference on the Moon was much less than what is experienced on ISS, since it was daytime on the Moon and the overall temperature was relatively the same, though colder in shadowed areas. At ISS the 45 minutes the station spends at night each orbit gets it much colder.

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