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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.


Starliner launch set for Friday, December 20

Capitalism in space: The first orbital flight of Boeing’s Starliner capsule, remains on target for launch this coming Friday, December 20, 2019.

The launch is presently set for 6:36 am (Eastern), with a docking at ISS early the next day.

NASA will be broadcasting the launch and docking.

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

    Since this is joyously a competition between two commercial companies, it is worth noting that SpaceX did their first flight of Crew Dragon to the ISS March 2019, almost 10 months ago.

    Context is helpful.

  • Captain Emeritus

    If this Russian-Powered Atlas 5 screws the pooch, well then, back to the drawing board for a couple of years of review, until the NASA paper reports generated equals the weight of the Starliner.
    Meanwhile, SpaceX could totally resupply our ISS without any Soyuz help, and is long overdue to fly crews to the outpost.
    Boeing has enough on its plate with the 737.
    Also, why are they going to launch with the capsule abort system inert?
    When/if the Atlas CATO’s (catastrophic take-off), what better endorsement for the Starliner than a successful escape?
    Can the Starliner also fit on a Falcon 9?
    With the Atlas 5, it appears they can make it fit on anything. (what an ugly rocket!) ;-)

  • Diane Wilson

    Captain Emeritus, Atlas 5 has a better reliability record than Falcon 9. Just saying.

    Yes, it is ugly.

  • Mike Borgelt

    I’d fly on a Falcon 9 any day in preference to an Atlas 5. Who needs large firecrackers attached to the first stage?

  • Col Beausabre

    Mike Boggett, Why the preference ? Just saying you’ll take one over the other is not informative.

  • Mike Borgelt

    You can’t turn the solids off. Just like the Shuttle. Bad idea for piloted rockets. And my name is Borgelt.

  • Captain Emeritus

    OK, Diane, you got me.
    Latest data I can find shows 80 Atlas 5 launches
    With 79 successes for a 98.75% rate.
    Also, 80 Falcon 9 launches with 78 successful
    flights equals a 98.5% rate.
    UAL has to buy it’s success from the Ruskies
    and charges anywhere from $120-150million per expendable flight. (Depending on configuration)
    Falcon 9 has LANDED 47 of its boosters so far.
    (and all American made)
    I can get you a good deal on a slightly scorched, flight proven Falcon 9 for roughly $50 million for your next project.
    A far better use of American taxpayer dollars.
    I will not do any business with communists or socialists.
    Let them thrive in their own repressive regimes.

  • Captain Emeritus

    Col Beausabre,
    I think Mr. Borgelt would agree that our loss of the Challenger and 7 national treasures in 1986
    is reason enough, to never again to risk American lives on solid rocket boosters.

  • Mike Borgelt

    Exactly.

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