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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 successfully completes Dragon parachute tests

Capitalism in space: SpaceX successfully completed the last planned parachute test yesterday for its manned Dragon spacecraft, clearing the way for its first manned launch on May 27th.

NASA also said that it has closed its investigation into the Merlin engine issue from a March Falcon 9 launch, leaving nothing but the weather in the way for that May manned flight.

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

2 comments

  • Col Beausabre

    And in the “Huh” department….

    “Elon Musk just declared that he’s selling almost all his physical belongings and ‘will own no house’ and that he thinks Tesla’s stock price is ‘too high'” Business Insider

    https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-selling-belongings-house-tesla-stock-2020-5

    That grinding sound you hear is the SEC tearing itself apart

    “where he would live once he owns no house” 1) On Mars 2) In the backseat of a Tesla (if they have a backseat)

    This is sounding more and more like the Heaven’s Gate Fiasco – “Sell all your goods and follow me to Mars!”

  • Dick Eagleson

    I don’t think Elon is planning to take things to quite a Jack Reacher level of divestiture, but this makes sense. It makes little sense, even for a multi-billionaire, to maintain one or more expensive mansions if he is hardly ever in residence at any of them. Most rich people seem to indulge these extravagances, in significant part, to impress/keep up with other rich people. That sort of thing has never been any real part of Musk’s psychological makeup.

    Musk can easily find short-term accommodations near the places he peripatetically spends the vast majority of his time. He can also easily find convenient places to garage his cars. When in Boca Chica, for example, I don’t know where Musk drops his bags, but I suspect it’s in one of the two dozen or so houses in Boca Chica Village that SpaceX has accumulated. Perhaps he keeps a Tesla there too.

    I do/i> note that there was no mention of divesting his Gulfstream 650 bizjet – and I don’t expect there to be. Musk seems to spend a lot more time in that than he does at any of his “estates.”

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