To read this post please scroll down.

 

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.


Samples from space!

Scientists from both the Japanese Hayabusa-2 mission to the asteroid Ryugu and the Chinese Chang’e-5 mission to the Moon announced yesterday the total amount of material they successfully recovered.

The numbers appear to diminish the Japanese success, but that is a mistake. Getting anything back from a rubble-pile asteroid that had never been touched before and is much farther away from Earth than the Moon was a very great achievement. The 5.4 grams is also more than fifty times the minimum amount they had hoped for.

This is also not to diminish the Chinese achievement, They not only returned almost four pounds, some of that material also came from a core sample. They thus got material both from the surface and the interior of the Moon, no small feat from an unmanned robot craft.

Scientists from both nations will now begin studying their samples. Both have said that some samples will be made available to scientists from other countries, though in the case of China it will be tricky for any American scientist to partner with China in this research, since it is by federal law illegal for them to do so.

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

9 comments

  • Skunk Bucket

    While it may indeed be tricky for US scientists to partner with the Chinese in looking at these samples, all is not lost. At the rate SpaceX is going, we’ll have plenty of lunar material of our own to look at soon.

  • Max

    I hope none of the samples were from Andromeda… Ha

    Wayne, do we have a fire?

  • Jhon

    Am I reading this right: Less than .2 ozs? (Point 2 Ounces)
    They can call it a success, but I don’t. They did pick up a few specs, but all that money and all that time for .2 oz. (yes I know they did other things) I hope we did better with ours.
    and really, who know how much the chinese really got.

  • wayne

    The Andromeda Strain (1971)
    audiobook
    https://youtu.be/-UKH9qdyo0A
    8:13:42

  • I think both achievements are remarkable, with the Japanese effort perhaps more so. This is the very first material from an asteroid (or fragment), that didn’t already pass through the atmosphere. The mass of the Hayabus2 sample is a bit deceptive, as we don’t know the material density.

  • Jeff Wright

    With any luck, China and Japan might swap samples as part of an outreach.

  • James Street

    – Hayabusa2 returned with 5.4 grams of asteroid soil, far more than target
    – China’s Chang’e-5 retrieves 1,731 grams of moon samples

    I wonder if anyone at NASA has a feeling of horror in the pit of their stomach questioning what they’ve been doing with their billions of dollars over the last 50 years. Besides decades old space stations and Mars rovers. And Tang.

    Will it motivate change, or will they just punch in on Monday morning business as usual….

  • Jhon

    James Street, NASA has work for the next 20 years, getting sls off the ground. That project is the epitome of what is wrong with US government today.
    I hope their land and scoop project does not come back empey. If I remember correctly the lid would not close on the container and they could not test to see if anything was in there. Supposedly because they got too much. But I find it hard to believe that the engineers did not factor in filling too full. But we won’t know until 2023.

  • Alex Andrite

    Nice “grab” all around. I am amazed. Seriously.

    And what will it all enlighten us with ?

    Velcro ?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *