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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
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September 11, 2025 Quick space links

Courtesy of BtB’s stringer Jay. This post is also an open thread. I welcome my readers to post any comments or additional links relating to any space issues, even if unrelated to the links below.

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

3 comments

  • wayne

    This is a great story!

    Surveyor 5 Lands on Moon
    https://youtu.be/3dl6JvAkAG8
    2:40

    “18 hours after launch, Surveyor-5’s vernier thrusters were fired for 14 seconds to reduce landing velocity. Immediately after firing telemetry indicated the compressed helium used to pressurize the vernier system was leaking through the regulator valve.
    3 additional firings were commanded in an attempt re-seat the valve, without success. Emergency tests…. were run to determine the minimum helium pressure and propellant requirements for an emergency soft-landing. The Plan: while ample helium pressure was still available, the spacecrafts weight would be reduced by burning excess vernier engine fuel. By lightening the spacecraft, the thrust required during the vernier deceleration phase would be reduced. Next, the terminal-descent phase was reprogrammed to defer retrorocket firing until the last possible moment. Development of a new terminal-descent sequence normally took 4-6 weeks, for Surveyor 5 it was accomplished in 40 hours, ending when the spacecraft touched down approximately 18 miles from its intended landing site.”

  • Jeff Wright

    I am hoping this helps liquid-fueled rocketry:

    https://phys.org/news/2025-09-atomic-enables-alloys-wont-extreme.html

    “A study published in the journal Nature describes a new way to design metal alloys so they stay strong and tough even at super low temperatures. The big idea is to create an alloy with two different types of perfectly arranged atomic structures inside it. These structures are called subnanoscale short-range ordering (SRO), which are tiny islands of organized atoms and nanoscale long-range ordering (NLRO), which are slightly larger.”

    This just makes me sick
    https://phys.org/news/2025-09-colonial-language-dominated-space-exploration.html

    “In effect, we are all ‘space citizens.’ That means space must not be left to dominant nations and tech titans alone.”

    i.e. all you pro-space types should be slave to rock-worshippers.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Jeff Wright,

    Rock worshipers and worse. It might be the work of a couple of centuries or so to see to the deaths of Marxism, Islam and tribalism here on Earth, but it won’t take much to keep all three out of space. Ticket prices should do most of the job.

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