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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.


Stratolaunch shutting down?

According to a Reuters story today based upon anonymous sources within the company, Stratolaunch is about to cease operations.

The key quote from the article:

As of April 1, Stratolaunch had only 21 employees, compared with 77 last December, one of the four sources said. Most of the remaining employees were focused on completing the carrier plane’s test flight.

The decision to set an exit strategy was made late last year by Allen’s sister, Jody Allen, chair of Vulcan Inc and trustee of the Paul G. Allen Trust, one of the four people and the fifth industry source said. Jody Allen decided to let the carrier aircraft fly to honor her brother’s wishes and also to prove the vehicle and concept worked, one of the four people said.

If true, this is hardly a surprise. The company was never able to find a viable path to orbit. It had built a spectacular plane, but could not find a rocket for that plane to launch.

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

  • Cotour

    The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.

    No matter how carefully a project is planned, something may still go wrong with it. The saying is adapted from a line in “To a Mouse,” by Robert Burns: “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft a-gley.”

    You just never know.

  • wodun

    Hopefully, the work they have done will be sold to other companies who can find ways to use it.

    What if they built a structure in the center that allowed the rapid loading/unloading of container boxes? Fly in drop off the container carrying structure, hook up a new one, and fly off to the next destination.

    Maybe Bezos will buy it.

  • Edward

    I wish I were surprised by this news, but I have suspected that this venture had been a drain on Paul Allen and that his heirs were not enthusiastic enough about space to continue the work until it proved profitable or unprofitable.

    It is events such as this that makes me especially eager to wish good health to Jeff Besos and Robert Bigelow. They, too, are funding expensive operations that are on the verge of making a big difference in space access and in the space economy. I certainly hope that their endeavors are able to continue long enough to prove profitable or not.

    Other NewSpace companies are driven less by personality and more by operations or business opportunities. These include Sierra Nevada and SpaceX, although SpaceX may become less driven to get to Mars if anything were to happen to Elon Musk.

  • jburn

    Are we seeing the end of airplane assisted rocket launching? Both this company and Virgin are seeing their entire approach to space access superseded by advances in reusable rocket technology.

  • Terrence

    I was thinking that this might be the time Scaled Composite moved from earth to space with a rocket, however, I just found out the Scaled Composites was bought by Northrop Grumman. Is there any hope?

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