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Readers!

 

It is now July, time once again to celebrate the start of this webpage in 2010 with my annual July fund-raising campaign.

 

This year I celebrate the fifteenth anniversary since I began Behind the Black. During that time I have done more than 33,000 posts, mostly covering the global space industry and the related planetary and astronomical science that comes from it. Along the way I have also felt compelled as a free American citizen to regularly post my thoughts on the politics and culture of the time, partly because I think it is important for free Americans to do so, and partly because those politics and that culture have a direct impact on the future of our civilization and its on-going efforts to explore and eventually colonize the solar system.

 

You can’t understand one without understanding the other.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent independent analysis you don’t find elsewhere. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn’t influenced by donations by established companies or political movements. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.

 

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.


The annual fund-raising campaign has begun

In celebration of today’s eighth anniversary of my first post on Behind the Black, I have now begun my annual fund-raising campaign.

That first post described the opening of the recently recovered return capsule of Japan’s Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission. The mission had been plagued by technical difficulties. Yet engineers had managed to get it back to Earth, and this was their first attempt to see if it had captured any asteroid material. In the end the spacecraft had managed to capture a tiny amount of minuscule particles.

At this moment, eight years later, Hayabusa-2 is approaching another asteroid, Ryugu, is working perfectly, and if all goes right, will return with far more material.

If you want me to be able to report on these upcoming events, on Ryugu, on Mars, on the Moon, and most especially in the political halls of Washington and elsewhere that unfortunately dictates much of what happens in space, please consider donating or subscribing to Behind the Black, as described in the box above. Anything you contribute will help, even the smallest amount.

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

2 comments

  • Jason Hillyer

    I was unaware of all space related information eight years ago, and now with the help of your website, I have been able to expand my horizons a great, great deal. I wanna thank you for the good work you do with this website, and offer good luck for the many years we hopefully have in front of us… Exciting times are ahead!! Or as Wernher von Braun once put it, “Man Will Conquer Space Soon!”

  • Great post! I am actually getting ready to across this information, is very helpful my friend. Also great blog here with all of the valuable information you have. Keep up the good work you are doing here.

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