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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
 
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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 two Intelsat communications satellites

Capitalism in space: SpaceX today successfully launched two Intelsat communications satellites using its Falcon 9 rocket.

The first stage completed its fourteenth flight, landing successfully on a drone ship in the Atlantic.

The leaders in the 2022 launch race:

46 SpaceX
42 China
12 Russia
8 Rocket Lab
7 ULA

American private enterprise now leads China 66 to 42 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 66 to 62.

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

9 comments

  • geoffc

    I think 1060 had flown 13 times and this was 14 not 15 for it. Cannot find a good reference to prove that though.

  • geoffc: I just double-checked SpaceX’s email announcement and discovered I had miscounted. I will correct.

  • Mike Borgelt

    Take a look at the livestream. The shot of the booster just after landing at around 9:00 to 9:30, lit up by floods on the barge with the twilight background and the sun lighting up the booster contrail distorted by the high altitude winds with the gases from the entry burn (the guys at Peenemunde called it “frozen lightning”) peeking out from above a small cloud. Awesome!

  • Jeff

    Mike Borgelt said – “…shot of the booster just after landing… – Awesome!”

    Agree 100%. There was a short video shot just before landing where you could see the second stage climbing up to orbit. First stage video showed the flood lights on the barge just before landing burn. Incredible views that I’m sure will be replayed multiple times. I want a poster of that post landing shot.

    On the Spaceflight Now video there was a great telescopic shot of the fairings maneuvering, along with the first stage as the second stage powered away.

  • geoffc

    And end of the month we may get to see what kind of photos they can get from the double side core landings from the Falcon Heavy on ASDS’s. That could be cool, or terrible.

  • Ray Van Dune

    SpaceX’s experience with recovery of Falcon Heavy cores has been mixed. The twin side boosters were recovered on land in all three flights, but on the first and third flights the center cores malfunctioned, and missed the drone ship.

    This has to be understood in the context of the center core flying unusually long distances, since the side cores are operated at full throttle to use their fuel as quickly as possible, while the center core operates at reduced power, and then shoulders the load after the side cores have exhausted their fuel and separated. This makes the return flight of the side cores easier, but that of the center core more demanding.

    In the second FH flight, the center core successfully landed on the ASDS, but then toppled overboard during the long sea trip home, and was lost. So no FH center cores have been completely recovered to date.

  • GaryMike

    Resisting modernity, the government of Iran has to embrace modernity to defeat modernity.

    It’s only a matter of time before Iranians are finally free.

  • sippin_bourbon

    GaryMike

    That is half the middle east in a nut shell.

    The other half is still 14th century.

    It was odd seeing mud huts with satellite dishes.

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