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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.

 

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.


SpaceX and Rocket Lab complete launches

Both SpaceX and Rocket Lab successfully completed launches today. First SpaceX launched another 23 Starlink satellites, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral. The first stage completed its ninth flight, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

Shortly thereafter, Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket lifted off from one of its launchpads in New Zealand, placing two technology demonstration satellites in orbit, one testing a solar sail from NASA and the other from South Korea testing a cubesat doing optical observations of Earth. Though the first stage had the markings of a stage designed for resuse, there was no indication in the company’s live stream of any attempt to recover it.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

42 SpaceX
16 China
6 Russia
5 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 49 to 28, while SpaceX by itself still leads the rest of the world, including other American companies, 42 to 35.

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

6 comments

  • mkent

    This was Electron’s 42nd successful orbital launch, moving it into a tie with Northrop Grumman’s Pegasus for the second most prolific smallsat launcher in history. LTV’s Scout will retain its record of 87 for a while yet, I should think.

  • mkent: Were those 87 Scout launches all orbital? I did not think it had that many orbital launches.

  • mkent

    Bob: I thought so when I typed that, but checking my records, I find 122 total Scouts launched across 21 flown variants, breaking down into 90 successful orbital flights, 12 failed orbital flight attempts, and 20 intentional suborbital flights. Payload to orbit of the orbital variants ranged from a low of 6 kg to a high of 210 kg, so both Pegasus and Electron have Scout beat quite handily in that department.

  • Edward

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scout_launches

    I counted 97 successful orbital launches. 95 low Earth orbit and 2 high orbit.

    It is exciting that Rocket Lab has exceeded monthly launches and is now averaging one every 3½ weeks.

  • mkent

    Edward: Wikipedia? How quaint. :-)

    That might be where I was remembering 87 successful orbital launches from.

    ”I counted 97 successful orbital launches. 95 low Earth orbit and 2 high orbit.”

    Are you sure? I counted 87 successful orbital launches: 85 LEO and 2 HEO. That figure also matches the “Launches By Vehicle” and “Launches By Decade” charts on that page.

    Either way, Electron has a ways to go to match that record

  • Edward

    mkent,
    Are you sure?

    Well, that is why I put in the link, just in case I cannot count on my fingers correctly. I haven’t verified your count, but since it matches the other, I will trust that it is correct.

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