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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.


Real vs imagined human spaceflight.

Real vs imagined human spaceflight.

He gets it. This was the same problem the Russians discovered when they were operating Mir.

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

  • Engineering problems need to be solved by engineers.. and you really need to pay them. I may be wrong, but I don’t think the MarsOne folks are up to that stage yet (and may never be).

    Tune into The Space Show today at 2pm PDT (5pm EDT) to hear Bas Lansdorp give an update.. call in to ask him if he’s crazy :)

  • Sorry I mean tomorrow, Friday, May 10, 2013.

  • D. K. Williams

    No way I’d trust engineers to solve engineering problems in a vacumn (pun intended). You have to include people who will use whatever is to be built, preferably with experience. Where I work, the techniks force “upgrades” upon us and foul everything up, largely because they look down on us end-users as not worthy of their time. The idea of asking us peons whether some new software or hardware is needed would never occur to them. Often a simple phone call would reveal a serious problem before time and money is spent. The dumbest thing I’ve seen was when the geeks bought new room scheduling software and refused help to program it. As a result, a class was literally scheduled in a phone booth.

  • Pzatchok

    Space flight will never be common place until they just hire custodians and janitors for the maintenance tasks on board space stations.

    Seriously, they do not have NASA engineers changing light bulbs and air filters at any NASA facility. When will they just accept that so called normal people can go into space and work a normal job? Or do we want our plumbers to have a six year degree in engineering and hold a jet fight pilot status.

    They have GOT to get over their own self importance.

  • Imagine comes before real. Then experience takes over.

    Experience should guide imagination.

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