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Readers!

 

My July fund-raising campaign to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black is now over. I want to thank all those who so generously donated or subscribed, especially those who have become regular supporters. I can't do this without your help. I also find it increasingly hard to express how much your support means to me. God bless you all!

 

The donations during this year's campaign were sadly less than previous years, but for this I blame myself. I am tired of begging for money, and so I put up the campaign announcement at the start of the month but had no desire to update it weekly to encourage more donations, as I have done in past years. This lack of begging likely contributed to the drop in donations.

 

No matter. I am here, and here I intend to stay. If you like what I do and have not yet donated or subscribed, 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.


Spanish court indicts two high-altitude balloon companies for stealing from third

In a legal battle between the three Spanish high-altitude balloon tourist companies (Zero-2, Halo, and Eos-X), a court in Spain has indicted the latter two for stealing trade secrets from the first.

The case stems from Zero 2 Infinity’s allegations that the people hired to raise money for its space tourism business established two competing firms based on Zero 2 Infinity’s intellectual property.

After asking for extensive documentation to share with potential investors, some of the individuals indicted “changed the logo in the presentations and managed to raise 1 million euros for a company that was just a website with some” computer generated imagery, Jose Mariano Lopez-Urdiales, Zero 2 Infinity founder and CEO, told SpaceNews. “They thought they could do that because Zero 2 Infinity was in financial distress, in part because we were expecting that 1 million euros to arrive.”

…The law in question carries potential penalties “of imprisonment from three to five years” if the secrets in question were “disseminated, revealed, or transferred to third parties” in addition to fines, Spanish attorney Leonardo LĂłpez Marcos, co-founder of the International Legal Center for Space Sustainability, said by email.

One of the companies, Halo, apparently used the fund-raisers as a go-between so that it never had any direct links to the original company, Zero-2. Of the three companies, Halo has now done the most test flights. Whether this ruling will force it to shut down remains unclear.

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

8 comments

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