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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 launches commercial satellite

The competition heats up: SpaceX tonight successfully launched Echostar 23.

This launch is almost four weeks after their last launch, which sent a Dragon capsule to ISS. Their goal this year has been to do one launch every two weeks, a goal they have not yet reached. The next launch, which will also place a commercial communications satellite into orbit, is tentatively set for March 27, and will also be the first launch that reuses a first stage. If they make that happen it will be first time they have hit the two week launch rate this year. They will then try to follow with another Dragon resupply mission, this time reusing a Dragon capsule for the first time.

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

5 comments

  • jhon

    After months of waiting, The Brazilians can finally watch TV again

  • wodun

    jhon
    March 16, 2017 at 2:44 pm
    After months of waiting, The Brazilians can finally watch TV again

    Could you imagine what would happen in the USA if there was no TV or internet to watch entertainment on? It wouldn’t be the mass reading of books that I know.

  • Edward

    Hosted webcast (my favorite type):
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=suYE3igjxIo (54 minutes)

    Technical webcast (no jibber jabber)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIfl2krO7yY (48 minutes)

    wodun,
    Before the internet and TV there were radio and movie theaters. And families used to sing and read newspapers.

  • wayne

    wodun– oh yeah, far too many people in the United States would meltdown if their internet & TV went dark. “First World Problems.”

    Edward–
    In general, I love me some jibber-jabber, but I prefer the technical webcast from SpaceX.

    totally tangential, but communication-related and I know there are some radio-people out there–
    ran across a video on an absolutely yuge AM radio transmitter in Mason, Ohio. The only station to ever transmit at such a high power.
    “WLW’s 500,000 Watt Transmitter”
    https://youtu.be/CbHjcwIoTiY
    (31:43)
    Founded by Powel Crosley. He began broadcasting from his garage at 20 watts in the early 1920’s & started an AM radio-set factory, shortly thereafter he formed WLW 700-am, and kept increasing the power on a regular basis.
    They went from 50K watts to 500K watts in 1932. The whole transmitter is the height of analog design & technology. Truly massive, direct-current powered, with 2 foot tall water-cooled vacuum tubes and assorted support infrastructure that is steam-punk esque.

  • Dick Eagleson

    As the FCC was created in 1934, I have to figure that WLW just got grandfathered in. The FCC certainly wouldn’t license a new half-megawatt AM transmitter these days.

    That is not, by the way, an implication that I agree with the FCC on that point. As far as I’m concerned, a radio station should be able to broadcast at any signal strength it wants so long as it has clear-channel permission. There are numerous AM stations outside the U.S. that broadcast with more power than the FCC maximum of 50,000 watts. I would draw a line if a transmitter generated ball lightning and annoyed the nearby livestock.

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