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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.

 

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Tiangong-1 reentry window narrowed to only 3.4 hours and two orbits

The sky is falling! The Tiangong-1 reentry window has now been narrowed to only 3.4 hours and two orbits, centered on 8:30 pm (Eastern) on April 1.

It appears the world might be dodging this very minor bullet. The new window, which the spacecraft has just now entered as I write this, has allowed for the first prediction on where it should come down, and it appears that this will be in the southern hemisphere in the Pacific west of South America.

Update: Tiangong-1 came down in the Pacific Ocean at 8:15 pm (Eastern) on April 1.

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

6 comments

  • wayne

    Here in Michigan, the Governor has activated our State’s “Emergency Operations Center; Anti-Satellite Re-Entry Division,” to handle the Crisis. We are to expect brown-outs if they have to divert power to the deflector array.

    pivoting…
    DEVO
    “Space Junk”
    https://youtu.be/Z2dcVIEQwEE
    (2:14)

  • Andrew_W

    Thanks Wayne, but can you please attach a warning next time you link to a horrendous racket like that?

  • Dick Eagleson

    If I’ve interpreted the co-ordinates given on the Aerospace Corp. website correctly, Tiangong’s remains seem to have come down at a spot in the Southwest Pacific roughly 400 miles due East of American Samoa. Aerospace’s last estimated splashdown position was evidently a few minutes of orbital travel time too optimistic.

    I don’t know how much of a light show Tiangong put on for the South Pacific islanders, but if there are any surviving cargo cultists among them, their explanations would be interesting to hear.

  • eddie willers

    I was on Tahiti and almost spilt my pineapple drink with the little umbrella.

  • wayne

    “Cargo Cult Science” by Richard Feynman
    Adapted from the Caltech commencement address 1974
    https://youtu.be/yvfAtIJbatg
    (20:32)

  • Keith

    I was kinda hoping it would hit the State House in Trenton.

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