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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.


Russia successfully launches new Progress freighter to ISS

Russia today successfully placed a new Progress freighter into orbit, its Soyuz-2 rocket lifting off from Kazakhstan.

The freighter will dock with ISS on March 2, 2025, docking with the aft port of the Zvezda module, the core module of the Russian half of the station. I guarantee that during that docking the hatch will be closed between the American and Russian segments, as that is now NASA’s policy because of its concern about the stress fractures in Zvezda.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

25 SpaceX
9 China
2 Rocket Lab
2 Russia

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

  • geoffc

    Interesting that they are actually using the aft port. I guess they need to refuel the station for reboost. That is the only port with the plumbing to refuel I believe.

    I bet that the hatch between the core Zvezda and the docking module will be closed, and the crew will be in their Soyuz for the docking as well. Just in case.

    This was so frustrating. Not a single article I read, bemoaning Musk’s tweet about ending the ISS mentioned the leaks, which is the primary reason to end it sooner. Kind of a critical detail. End it before they all die, usually is a reasonable discussion point.

  • Richard M

    However malign a force Russia might be in current affairs, it’s still melancholy to see how far their space sector has fallen, not just from its Soviet peak, but even from the period of post-Yeltsin recovery in the 00’s and early 10’s. The Soviet peak was 100+ launches per year. Even that Russian peak was busting out 30 or so launches per year.

    Now here we are, two months into 2025, and the Russians have a grand total of two orbital launches.

  • geoffc: Let me correct you: “Not a single article I read — except Zimmerman’s posts here at Behind the Black — mentioned the leaks.”

  • Dick Eagleson

    Richard M,

    Decline is a choice. Russia has chosen to spend its final years in futile wars of expansion chasing the phantom of a Soviet imperial restoration. Everything else has been subordinated to that hopeless iron dream. About all that can be said of this disastrous choice is that it materially hastens the day when, to paraphrase Hugo Drax, Russia will be put out of our misery.

  • geoffc

    Robert, I stand accurately corrected. My apologies.

  • geoffc: No apology required (though I accept it with amusement).

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