Scroll down to read this post.

 

Readers!

 

The time has come for my annual short Thanksgiving/Christmas fund drive for Behind The Black. I must do this every year in order to make sure I have earned enough money to pay my bills.

 

For this two-week campaign, I am offering a special deal to encourage donations. Donations of $200 will get a free autographed copy of the new paperback edition of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8, while donations of $250 will get a free autographed copy of the new hardback edition. If you desire a copy, make sure you provide me your address with your donation.

 

As I noted in July, the support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.

 

In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.

 

Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four 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.
 

3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:

 

4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed 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 moves its corporation home from Delaware to Texas

As had been threatened by Elon Musk, SpaceX has now officially filed to move its incorporation home from Delaware to Texas, taking with it signicant tax dollars.

SpaceX, which was incorporated in the famously corporation-friendly Delaware, filed to relocate its business incorporation with the Texas Secretary of State, Bloomberg reported.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk publicly railed against the Diamond State and a judge’s decision to void his $55 billion Tesla pay package.

Another Musk company, Neuralink, has also shifted its incorpoation from Delaware to Nevada.

None of this involves the movement of any physical facilities. However, Musk is making it very clear once again that if a state government interferes unreasonably with his business operations, he will leave it. He did this by the actual shifting previously large parts of SpaceX operations from California to Texas when California government officials attempted to punish him for remaining open during the Wuhan panic. Now he is doing the same to Delaware because it appears one judge decided he didn’t like Musk’s Tesla’s pay package, even though 80% of the company’s stockholders approved.

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. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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

7 comments

  • pzatchok

    And the case is not even over.
    He could dispute the total amount for the next year or so.

  • Milt

    Just for fun — and he can certainly afford it — Elon Musk ought to send a copy of Atlas Shrugged to every elected official in Delaware. The problem is, assuming that their reading ability would carry them through the novel, they probably wouldn’t “get it.”

    Anyway, good on you, Elon, for taking this action. Who else will follow in your footsteps?

  • Elon truly is the personification of John Galt.

  • Jeff Wright

    Galt wasn’t as weird.

  • Edward

    Milt wrote: “Just for fun — and he can certainly afford it — Elon Musk ought to send a copy of Atlas Shrugged to every elected official in Delaware. The problem is, assuming that their reading ability would carry them through the novel, they probably wouldn’t ‘get it.’

    At first, I thought that the book was so well written that no one could fail to get it, but then the very next comment shows that some people didn’t get the basic concept behind John Galt’s industrial revolution.

    Galt had left the country to its fate. Musk is not like that. Musk is more like Dagny Taggart, attempting to keep the country going despite the overbearing tyrannical government’s stupidity and counterproductive edicts. Or Musk is like Hank Rearden, who works toward his own goals despite the government taking as much away from him as it possibly can.

    Galt didn’t mind taking the best and the brightest with him. Musk bought Twitter solely to bring some amount of sanity and productivity back to America, Taggart-like.

    Galt disappeared, leaving everyone else behind. Musk has a mission that he continues to pursue, Rearden-like.

    Notice how difficult it was for Galt to convince Taggart and Rearden to leave it all behind and let the “parasites,” “looters,” and “moochers” (whose love of money* led them to demand the benefits of other people’s labor**) to fall due to the poor leadership that they elected. Rearden himself was perfectly willing to feed money to his mooching family, as he didn’t care about the money, just the challenges that he had to overcome. He was an eager engineer, solving problems no matter how difficult. Musk seems this way, where the goal of getting to Mars outweighs the love of money.
    ______________
    * Francisco is right that money is not the root of all evil. From the Bible, it is the love of money that is the root of all evil. Francisco, however, says “The lovers of money are willing to work for it.”
    https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/library/books/franciscos-money-speech-from-atlas-shrugged/

    I disagree. Like Taggart and Reardon, those who have made a lot of money have done so not for the love of the money but for the love of the process that makes the money. Musk did not start SpaceX to get rich, he started it to explore Mars, as launch costs were the biggest obstacle to space exploration. A private company can build satellites and probes for much less than governments do, but the cost of launches were driven by those same inefficient, wasteful governments. It was no use reducing the cost of the probe when the cost of the launch was still prohibitive. Musk got rich, but not from the love of money. He got rich from the love of solving problems. The money is only a byproduct.

    ** Francisco says, “When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, ‘Who is destroying the world?’ You are.” Government punishes (taxes) those who are productive and rewards the parasites by giving them much of that mooched loot. The point of the book.

  • wayne

    “Ayn Rand’s most important idea…”
    Michael Malice and Lex Fridman
    Lex Fridman podcast (January 2021)
    https://youtu.be/aGqj7yLIsdw
    3:07

  • 370H55V I/me/mine

    The Delaware judge’s pronouns are “she/her”.

    It figures.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *