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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
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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.


Proton launch success

The competition heats up: Russia’s Proton rocket successfully launched a military communications satellite on Sunday.

The link provides a lot of interesting information about the satellite as well as some recent upgrades the Russians have installed in Proton, but for context the last two paragraphs are probably the most important:

Sunday’s launch was the seventy ninth orbital launch attempt of 2015 and the seventh Proton launch of the year. Five of the six previous launches were successful, with May’s launch of Mexsat-1 failing to achieve orbit. Proton has had eleven failures in the last ten years, with 2009 the only year since 2005 in which it has not suffered at least one anomaly.

The next Proton launch is scheduled for 23 December, with another Proton-M/Briz-M carrying the Ekspress-AMU1 communications satellite. Details of any future Garpun launches are not available.

The launch reliability for Proton has seriously fallen since 2005, and to compete in the changing launch market they will need to fix this.

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

5 comments

  • wodun

    Is the contest heating up? Obviously is it with all of the progress in different areas both in the USA and abroad but last year there were 90/92 successful launches. This year only 79. Perhaps next year will see a higher launch rate as various companies recover from recent launch failures. Had those companies not had any issues, the launch rate surely would have been higher than 2013 but maybe not as high as 2014.

  • Edward

    Wodun,

    The *competition* is certainly heating up. For launch providers who have high reliability (e.g. ULA), satellite operators will flock for the assured launch into the proper orbit. For providers with low cost (e.g. SpaceX), operators will flock for the cheap access to the proper orbit. For providers who have lower reliability at higher cost (e.g. Russia), the operators desperate to get to orbit sooner rather than later will come to them.

    It is best not to be in the last category, because as soon as another provider can pick up its launch rate (as SpaceX is trying to do), or additional providers come online (e.g. ISRO and its GSLV rocket) then the poorer provider gets ignored altogether, and those rockets will stop being made (e.g. JAXA’s H-1).

    I recently read that at least 25 companies have announced plans to build rockets to launch small satellites, a class that is expected to grow rapidly in the next few years. The competition among those companies will be especially heavy, at least until the number of small satellites launched each year meets the (over)capacity to launch them.

  • Wodun

    Sure, I was just noting the drop in tempo this year.

  • Edward

    Yeah. Fiscal 2015 was pretty bad, overall. Too many failures, even a deadly one, and nerves about keeping ISS manned. But there were some successes and good news, too.

    Here’s to looking forward to a better 2016 (e.g. Blue Origin thinks they will start unmanned science sounding missions).

  • pzatchok

    No matter what negative things I might say about the Russian space industry I am glad the Proton is still in use and working hard.

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