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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
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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.


Starship gets its first communications satellite customer

Capitalism in space: Sky Perfect JSAT, a Japanese satellite communications company, today awarded SpaceX a launch contract using its giant Starship/Superheavy rocket to put its Superbird-9 communications satellite into orbit in 2024.

Superbird-9 will be launched by SpaceX’s Starship launch vehicle in 2024 to geosynchronous transfer orbit. SpaceX’s Starship is a fully reusable transportation system that will be the world’s most powerful launch vehicle. SKY Perfect JSAT and SpaceX will continue to work together ahead of the launch of Superbird-9 Satellite.

Sky Perfect is the first communications satellite company to choose Starship for a satellite launch. It is however the rocket’s fourth signed customer. Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa made a deal in 2018 for a flight around the Moon, while NASA chose Starship in 2021 as the manned lunar lander in its Artemis program. UPDATE: SpaceX also has a second private manned customer, Jared Isaacman, whose present deal with SpaceX calls for two Dragon flights followed by a Starship flight.

Sky Perfect is not a new company, with sixteen satellites already in orbit providing communications, broadband, and entertainment to Japan and the Far East. It likely made this deal because it got a very good launch price, with options to back out if the rocket’s on-going development gets delayed by too much. It also made the deal because it helps to solidify Starship’s future, something Sky Perfect probably sees as a win considering the significant reduction of launch costs expected from Starship/Superheavy.

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

  • Col Beausabre

    It’s SUUUPPERRRBIRD! It’s everywhere! It’s everywhere!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgMOOPxkYVk

  • Edward

    Robert wrote: “It likely made this deal because it got a very good launch price, with options to back out if the rocket’s on-going development gets delayed by too much.

    It is too bad that we don’t know this price. It could give us an idea of the lower end to the expected operational price tag, which SpaceX has long suggested should be very good (Go to Mars for $150,000 — 100 passengers should equal $15 million for a Starship to Mars, although I suspect that was a lowballed price, for impact in its public awareness, public relations campaign).

    Somehow, I thought that Jared Isaacman already had booked a Starship flight, the first manned Starship, which would make four bookings. Did I misunderstand? Is he still in negotiations with SpaceX?

  • Edward: You are correct, Jared Isaacman’s third flight is supposed to be on Starship, so the spaceship has four customers, not three. My error.

  • Jeff Wright

    SuperHeavy might have competition.

    ESA, give ‘em EHLL
    https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=56997.0

  • Edward

    Jeff Wright wrote: “SuperHeavy might have competition.

    Let’s hope so. Lack of competition kept launch prices high for six decades, reduced the demand for launches, and stifled the space economy. We can only hope that this potential competition helps to rapidly expand the space economy in the near future.

    Red Adair is said to have said: ‘I can do it fast, I can do it well, I can do it cheap. Pick two.’ When Congress designed SLS, they only chose one (do it well, launch 95 tonnes reliably). SpaceX’s Starship is intended to improve on all three: doing it fast (often, and to the customer’s schedule), doing it well (100 tonnes reliably to 500 km 98˚ Sun-sychronous orbit), and doing it cheap (rough order of magnitude $50 per pound, or $100 per Kg). Each competitor will have to improve on at least one of these abilities, and this is why SLS is not a competitor.

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