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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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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.


September 12, 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

7 comments

  • Alex

    The annoucement for “Voyager’s AltiusSpace celebrates winning contract from Maxar to build two robotic arms” is over three years old. The project was never completed.

  • Alex: Thank you! I will amend the post. Jay’s X feed often sends him old tweets with no distinction. Both of us try to catch these things, but we don’t always succeed.

  • Alex

    No worries, Sir. Thanks for the rapid response. Worked on that project a few years ago and almost spilled my coffee thinking it has somehow been resurrected.

  • Jeff Wright

    The sad thing about project cancellations is that it emboldens those who would make more cancellations and disheartens project workers.

    Let an institution get one project after another poorly funded and/or yanked—and there is always some wise-acre who wants to slime the whole outfit for failures that came from lack of support of that institution.

    Long before Elon Musk, the face of space privatization (outside of a few writers) was Gary Hudson.

    He had been told “no” so many times that it became a running joke that his involvement with a project was the “kiss of death.”

    Sad to go from Tom Swift to Richard Widmark.

  • Richard M

    Eric Berger highlights a new book by Andy Saunders of newly restored photos from Project Gemini, Gemini and Mercury Remastered — along with an interview with Saunders. The photos really are amazing. Eye-popping detail we just did not see before.

    60 years after Gemini, newly processed images reveal incredible details
    https://arstechnica.com/space/2025/09/60-years-after-gemini-newly-processed-images-reveal-incredible-details/

    Publisher book page here: https://www.apolloremastered.com/gemini-and-mercury-remastered

  • Jeff Wright

    From the Sept. 22 entry.

    “NASA’s corrupt safety panel once lambasts SpaceX for the delays in its Starship program, even though the main culprit was red tape during the Biden administration. I wonder when our propaganda press will stop paying attention to this junk panel, that hasn’t gotten anything right in years. ”

    Which didn’t stop Mr. Z. from posting this.
    https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/points-of-information/nasa-safety-panel-questions-safety-of-sls/

    Or did the Safety Panel only get corrupt when it dared critique a non-existing Lunar Starships now that Orion and SLS are about to fly for a second time?

    Sounds familiar:
    ” you done quit preaching and gone to meddlin’.”
    https://sermoncentral.com/sermon-illustrations/82285/you-done-quit-preachin-and-gone-to-meddlin-by-rick-pendleton

  • Jeff Wright: You are cherry-picking my posts. If you do a search on BtB for “NASA” “safety” and “panel” you will get a much fairer impression of the safety panel’s corrupt favoritism towards SLS, Orion, and Boeing and its generally irrational hostility to SpaceX. That one post where the panel questions SLS is the exception to the rule. But they did, and I posted that they did because I try to report things accurately.

    However, that panel report critical of SLS was in 2015, and was likely the last time the panel lambasted SLS with any seriousness. Since then the panel tends to try to ignore SLS entirely. If it says anything, it generally repeats NASA talking points.

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