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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.

 

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Russia suspends Soyuz-2 launches from French Guiana

Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, announced today that Russia is suspending all Soyuz-2 rocket operations with Arianespace at French Guiana in response to the sanctions imposed by the European Union (EU) over Russia’s invasion of the Ukraine.

In response to EU sanctions against our enterprises, Roskosmos is suspending cooperation with European partners over organising space launches from the Kourou cosmodrome and withdrawing its technical personnel… from French Guiana,” Dmitry Rogozin, chief of the Russian space agency, said on messaging app Telegram.

The next planned Russian launch from French Guiana for Arianespace is set for April, launching two EU GPS-type satellites. That launch is now in question. Russia only has 87 engineers in French Guiana, but whether Europe can launch without them is unlikely.

Russia’s other Arianespace commercial customer, the satellite constellation OneWeb, is owned jointly by the United Kingdom and private Indian investors and has a launch scheduled from Kazakhstan in March. While Russia probably intends to proceed with that launch, Arianespace, the EU, and the UK government might respond to Russia’s actions today by cancelling it in turn.

Meanwhile, there are hints coming from the Ukraine that Russia’s invasion is beginning to bog down. If so, expect Putin to try to negotiate a quick settlement, whereby he insists that the Ukraine abandon its effort to join NATO and commit to allying itself with Russia. Based on the poor support NATO provided in this war, expect the Ukraine to agree in some manner.

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

12 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    They left before they were kicked out.

    In other news, France has impounded a ship owned by a sanctioned Russian company trying to make a run through La Manche

  • Questioner

    If I were Putin, I wouldn’t trust the West. The so-called West has repeatedly betrayed the Russians.

  • If so, expect Putin to try to negotiate a quick settlement, whereby he insists that the Ukraine abandon its effort to join NATO and commit to allying itself with Russia. Based on the poor support NATO provided in this war, expect the Ukraine to agree in some manner.

    If Putin respected the unalienable rights of his people, he would have nothing to fear from NATO.

    Because what we used to refer to as the “free world” would have nothing to fear from him.

    What he just did, on top of the history of the Holodmor and WWII, makes the case for letting his neighbors into NATO.

    This is all on Putin, with the Pseudodent Administration and their Climate Change Cult supporters aiding and abetting him.

  • sippin_bourbon

    Every overture to include Russia into the the Western world has been used as a tool for manipulation by Putin.

    No one has betrayed Russia, Putin put them on this path himself.

  • sippin_bourbon

    An even more important point is that you cannot betray someone that has given absolutely no reason to be trusted.

  • David Eastman

    Well, Questioner’s comment there is certainly revealing, and puts a different slant on his many anti-SpaceX posts of the past.

  • Jeff Wright

    This is all very sad. If any good comes from this, it will be Putin’s removal. He put cosmonauts and his soldiers lives at risk for no good reason…and spilled blood of his fellow Slavs..

    Time for him to go.

  • GaryMike

    I’m thinking Putin considered himself the equal, or better, of Kasparov.

    I’m not a mind reader.

    The Ukrainians my prove that he isn’t one either.

  • Typo alert: 2nd to the last paragraph, 1st sentence: “and has a launch[ed] scheduled…”
    Delete the “ed”.

  • Michael McNeil: Thank you. Fixed.

  • Max

    Z-Man speculated:
    “expect Putin to try to negotiate a quick settlement”

    Putin’s negotiators are on their way…

    https://www.fox13now.com/news/national-news/putin-deploys-400-mercenaries-to-hunt-down-assassinate-zelensky

  • wayne

    questioner–

    the gulag gangster state of russia/soviet union; they have needed to GO, (all the way) my entire life.

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