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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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Second orbital launch failure in a month for Iran rocket

According to U.S. officials, Iran has attempted and failed twice in the past month to place satellites in orbit.

Iran’s second try in less than a month to send a satellite into orbit apparently failed shortly after liftoff from a remote desert launch pad under daily surveillance from a fleet of commercial imaging spacecraft, according to U.S. government officials and independent analysts.

Images of the launch pad in north-central Iran taken by orbiting satellites owned by U.S. companies suggest a rocket launch occurred last week, but the U.S. military’s catalog of space objects registered no new spacecraft in orbit. A satellite launch attempt was expected in recent weeks based on statements from Iran’s government and observations of increasing activity at the launch site.

Iran has admitted to a launch failure on January 15, though it denies the failure last week, claiming instead that the February launch succeeded in placing its satellite in orbit, even though no new satellite has been detected.

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

7 comments

  • wayne

    This made up country, needs to go away. All the way.

  • Andi

    “suggest a rocket launch occurred last week”? Hard to believe that DoD doesn’t know about every launch or attempted launch that occurs anywhere. Don’t they have all that early-detection hardware flying around?

  • Col Beausabre

    Hardly a “made up country” , Iran as a nation dates to the 7th century BC. Despite Greek propaganda, it was a lenient ruler over the peoples it conquered allowing local customs, laws and religion to remain in place as long as loyalty to the crown was demonstrated via the state religion, payment of taxes and providing its quota of troops. They were even ruled by locals called “satraps” (many of whom were local royalty and had grown up at the imperial court – both to serve as hostages and to indoctrinate them into the imperial system). As far as a civilization goes, the Iranians were at least the equals of Egypt and Mesopotamia. It also had no designs on Greece until several ethnically Greek cities rebelled and Athens provided financial and military support (via mercenaries) to the rebels. And, by the way, they called their country “Iran” and its ruler the “Shah”., “Persia” is what the Greeks called them.

  • wayne

    Col Beausabre-
    I’ll rephrase that….

    “This made up country needs to go away. All, the way.”

  • wayne

    Prepare the Red Matter….
    (Star Trek 2009)
    https://youtu.be/SABS1-v9V-Q
    4:00

  • Chris

    Wayne, wouldn’t a clip from the 300 meet your needs better?

    Col – thanks for the tid bit. I knew Iran was truly ancient but not that they identified as Iran.

    I must agree with the spirit of Wayne’s comment. The present Iranian government must be destroyed. They have evil designs. I think the population, as with most, is generally good.
    As for the Iranian people my anecdotal evidence is my experience in college. There were several Iranian nationals on campus. One in my Physics class. He had escaped “thruogh the desert” with his family. His father was in the military when the revolution hit. He was very intelligent but modest and quiet.
    Several others on campus were also Iranian but sponsored by the government I believe. They were fairly self centered and not nice to women. This was the talk on campus. They had bad behavior with females.

  • wayne

    “This is where they die”
    300
    https://youtu.be/cDpI6Zzy-vo
    1:44

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