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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.


The Antares rocket has been cleared for its first test launch tomorrow at 5 pm (Eastern).

The Antares rocket has been cleared for its first test launch tomorrow at 5 pm (Eastern).

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

4 comments

  • I wish Orbital Science success, but I’m having a tough time seeing how they can compete with SpaceX. Their orbital vehicle isn’t recoverable, the payload capability is much smaller, and they’re giving up roughly 10% of the angular velocity of Cape Canaveral by launching from Wallops Island. I can’t find any published data for Antares cost-to-orbit, but the current $5300/kg for Falcon 9 and the projected $4100/kg for Falcon 9 v1.1 is going to be hard to beat. Perhaps the fact that most of Antares is built in Ukraine and Russia gives Orbital Science a favorable cost structure.

  • wodun

    The Antares is built with the specific purpose to send supplies to the ISS. It isn’t intended to serve the diversity of customers a Falcon 9 can.

  • Be that as it may, I’d think given the current state of the art, a recoverable orbital vehicle would be a minimum requirement for customers.

  • wodun

    I don’t necessarily disagree with you but in the case of Antares it is only intended to have one customer.

    “Once Orbital’s Antares rocket was selected by NASA to supply the International Space Station, the company purchased 20 of the engines from Aerojet to power 10 launches – two test flights and eight operational missions, ”

    http://spaceflightnow.com/antares/demo/130416aj26/#.UXBoAqLErE0

    Wikipedia says there were only 150 total engines. So it looks a small project just to serve NASA for a few years.

    It will be interesting to see if NASA will still purchases launches from them after the ten flights, if Orbital makes any more engine purchases, or even if Orbital starts manufacturing their own engines. Maybe they can even scale up their launchers with additional engines and put other companies vehicles on them.

    Who knows if they have any plans for re-usability but it is a good example of what can be done with current tech.

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