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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.
 

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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.


SpaceX launches another 60 Starlink satellites

Capitalism in space: SpaceX early this morning successfully launched another 60 Starlink satellites into orbit using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The company also successfully used a first stage for a record ninth time, landing it on its drone ship in the Atlantic. The booster did all nine flights in just over two years.

The 2021 launch race:

8 SpaceX
6 China
3 Russia
1 Rocket Lab
1 Virgin Orbit
1 Northrop Grumman
1 India

The U.S. now leads China 11 to 6 in the national rankings.

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

10 comments

  • Patrick Underwood

    I read on NSF that this first stage, 1051, has now lifted more mass into orbit than any single booster in history, surpassing Skylab’s S-1C.

  • Patrick Underwood

    Thinking further, this means that, on the Artemis launch schedule, a single F9 S1 could put more payload up than SLS in the same time period!

  • Ray Van Dune

    And even more impressive, the SpaceX announcer was again that beautiful blonde lady engineer! Vaarroooom! She certainly ignites my interest!

  • All this is fine to think about Man’s conquest of space. That being said, I am a star watcher, satellites travelling through low Earth space is annoying.

  • Jeff Wright

    That was why I liked the Orbital Antenna Farm concept.

  • Chris

    Hi bob,

    So I wonder if a satellite count is also appropriate? Perhaps by country or just the major communication webs.
    My suggestion centers around how far is SpaceX ahead of the next competitor or how many more satellites – that are active – is the US ahead or behind China or Russia?
    I am not sure where to find this data.

  • Chris: My focus is the launch industry, something that for far too long was ignored by space and science reporters and experts. While what gets launched is of course of interest, I think it right now is more important to see who is gaining the ability to launch things, fast, efficiently, and at low cost.

    All else becomes irrelevant otherwise — as we have seen for the past fifty years.

    So, if you want to keep count of satellites, go for it. Another reader, LocalFluff, had started to add a count for payload, but has apparently stopped. All this requires work that I don’t have time for.

  • Chris

    Fully understood Bob

  • Jay

    Chris,
    A couple sites to check are: https://www.n2yo.com/database/ which you can sort by country and https://heavens-above.com/ I use these for tracking.

    If you are talking about competitors to the Starlink system- currently at 1197 operational satellites (6 have failed), Oneweb is the next closest with 110 satellites.

  • Jeff Wright

    Thor/Delta iterations still holds a bit of a lead, except for R-7. Falcon is gaining on them.

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