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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 completes its first launch for Amazon

SpaceX tonight successfully launched 24 Kuiper satellites for Amazon’s internet constellation, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

The first stage completed its first launch, landing on a drone ship in the Atlantic. This was the third new stage launched in 2025, and follows the company’s recent pattern of launching between one to three new stages per year. The two fairings completed their 27th and 28th flights respectively. As of posting the satellites had not yet been deployed.

This was SpaceX’s first launch for Amazon, out of an initial contract of three launches. The launch was also Amazon’s third Kuiper satellite launch, the previous two by ULA on its Atlas-5 rocket, launching 27 satellites each. While ULA seems poised to begin regular launches for Amazon, having a contract for 46 launches (with completed two), the contracts for Blue Origin’s New Glenn (27 launches, and ArianeGroup’s Ariane-6 (18 launches) are more uncertain. Neither company has achieved any launches on their contracts, and it is not clear when either company, especially Blue Origin, will ever begin regular launches.

This slow launch pace from these companies is a serious problem for Amazon, which is required by its FCC licence to get 1,600 satellites in orbit by July 2026. For this reason, there are rumors that Amazon might switching more launches to SpaceX, as it has the capability of to launch frequently.

We will have to wait and see.

The leaders in the 2025 launch race:

88 SpaceX
37 China
10 Rocket Lab
8 Russia

SpaceX now leads the rest of the world in successful launches, 88 to 64.

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

4 comments

  • Ronaldus Magnus

    “””SpaceX……. has the capability to launch frequently”””

    I believe that the above quote is the understatement of the decade.

  • Diane Wilson

    The only reason Amazon is launching anything on SpaceX is because shareholders sued. SpaceX is the low-cost, high-availability launcher, and Amazon had refused to consider them. I’d expect to see a whole lot more Kuiper launches on SpaceX.

  • Ray Van Dune

    I was curious about why the FCC sets deadlines on applicants making 50% progress on deploying their satellite constellations (and other types of communications infrastructure projects).

    So I asked Copilot, and among other things it said it is to prevent “spectrum warehousing”, whereby a licensee applies to use a spectrum segment, not to fully use it, but to deny it to competitors who might actually be prepared to use it first. Interesting.

  • F

    I don’t understand.

    Why didn’t Amazon just book some space on the next NASA launch?

    Oh . . . wait . . .

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