To read this post please scroll down.

 

THANK YOU!!

 

My November fund-raising campaign for Behind the Black is now over. As I noted below, up until this month 2025 had been a poor year for donations. This campaign changed that, drastically. November 2025 turned out to be the most successful fund-raising campaign in the fifteen-plus years I have been running this webpage. And it more than doubled the previous best campaign!

 

Words escape me! I thank everyone who donated or subscribed. Your support convinces me I should go on with this work, even if it sometimes seems to me that no one in power ever reads what I write, or even considers my analysis worth considering. Maybe someday this will change.

 

Either way, I will continue because I know I have readers who really want to read what I have to say. Thank you again!

 

This announcement will remain at the top of each post for the next few days, to make sure everyone who donated will see it.

 

The original fund-raising announcement:

  ----------------------------------

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.


South Africa lifts its racial quota rules for Starlink

The South African government has finally removed the racist rule that required SpaceX to sell 30% of its company to local black citizens before allowing Starlink terminals to be sold in its country.

Instead, the government will allow SpaceX to do what the company had repeatedly offered to do, make substantial investments in “local development programs.”

Starlink has been unable to launch in South Africa for years because the current ICASA rules require telecommunications companies to sell 30% of their equity to historically disadvantaged individuals. Starlink has consistently refused, stating it does not sell equity in any market where it operates.

But now under the new directive, multinational companies that cannot sell equity due to global shareholding structures can instead make substantial investments in local development programs. These equity equivalent investment programs must be worth either 30% of the company’s South African operations value or 4% of annual local revenue. The programs require approval and monitoring by the Department of Trade, Industry and Competition.

…Starlink has already outlined plans to invest nearly R2 billion in South Africa. The company proposed investing R500 million to connect approximately 5,000 schools to high-speed internet, benefiting about 2.4 million students.

One of the reasons the government backed down on this issue is that it received more than 19,000 public comments in which 90% blasted the racist quotas and demanded the government approve SpaceX’s proposals.

If you live in South Africa however don’t expect to go out and buy a Starlink terminal tomorrow. Final regulatory approvals will still delay Starlink availability until late 2027, at the earliest.

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

2 comments

  • wayne

    “Give Them Nothing, But Take from Them Everything”
    https://youtu.be/QEd7Y2YLgTg
    (0:06)

  • Dick Eagleson

    Typical pipsqueak Marxist kleptocratic government picking a fight it can’t win while its neighbors avail themselves of the service by being less greedy. Starlink has now been made available in so many places that no one of them is crucial as a customer.

    And I don’t foresee Amazon being any less hard-nosed about these Third World attempts at robbery. Less so, most probably, as the Amazon Leo network is going to cost considerably more to deploy and maintain than does Starlink – less margin for corrupt nonsense.

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