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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.


Parker probe completes fifth Venus flyby

The Parker Solar Probe on October 16th successfully completed its fifth flyby of Venus, designed to lower its solar orbit around the Sun.

At just after 5:30 a.m. EDT, moving about 15 miles (24 kilometers) per second, the spacecraft swooped 2,370 miles (3,814 kilometers) above Venus’ surface. Such gravity assists are essential to the mission to bring Parker Solar Probe progressively closer to the Sun; the spacecraft counts on the planet to reduce its orbital energy, which in turn allows it to travel closer to the Sun and measure the properties of the solar wind near its source.

This was the fifth of seven planned Venus gravity assists. The flyby reduced Parker Solar Probe’s orbital speed by about 6,040 miles per hour (9,720 kilometers per hour), and set it up for its 10th close pass (or perihelion) by the Sun, on Nov. 21.

Parker Solar Probe will break its own distance and speed records on that closest approach, when it comes approximately 5.3 million miles (8.5 million kilometers) from the Sun’s surface — some 1.2 million miles (1.9 million kilometers) closer than the previous perihelion on Aug. 13 – while reaching 101 miles (163 kilometers) per second, or 364,621 miles per hour. Assisted by two more Venus flybys, in August 2023 and November 2024, Parker Solar Probe will eventually come within 4 million miles (6.2 million kilometers) of the solar surface in December 2024.

That speed record, 364,621 miles per hour, is the fastest any human built object as ever traveled.

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

  • Questioner

    Event Horizon: “Why Venus May Have Life with Dr. Janusz Petkowski”

    “Our view of the clouds of Venus may be severely incomplete. The multitude of atmospheric anomalies suggest unknown chemistry or maybe even life in the clouds of Venus…..”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFYR3kDyhu8

  • Questioner

    V101 Science: “This Is What The Surface Of Venus Sounds Like! Venera 14 Sound Recording 1982”

    “Nearly 40 years ago Venera 14 landed on Venus and recorded the sound of its eerie, scorched surface. But what did it hear? Click of the video to find out!”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3Ife6iBdsU

    08:04

  • Questioner

    “Venus is NOT a “Runaway” Greenhouse Effect!”

    The Science Asylum

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgw-hMZi5eA

  • Questioner

    Mars and Venus Habitability with NASA Scientist Dr. Chris Colose

    “A discussion the hypothetical habitability of Mars and Venus if they were to switch places. Thanks to Dr. Chris Colose from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies for taking the time to speak with me.”

    Nick Lucid

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdc6lSh8guw&t=0s

    00:00:00 Dr. Colose’s work
    00:05:14 Introduction to Topic
    00:08:10 Move Mars to Venus’s orbit now
    00:11:33 Move Venus to Mar’s orbit now
    00:19:40 Greenhouse Effect
    00:31:15 Runaway Greenhouse Effect
    00:40:50 If Mars formed in Venus’s Orbit
    00:49:56 Faint Young Sun Paradox
    00:54:30 Runaway Greenhouse on Mars
    01:02:58 If Venus formed in Mars’s Orbit
    01:11:04 End of Conversation
    _______________________________

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