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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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Vast signs deal with Colombia’s space agency

Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule
Haven-1 with docked Dragon capsule

The space station startup Vast last week signed an agreement with the space agency of the South American country of Colombia to do cooperative research, linked to Vast’s planned space stations.

The agreement suggested it would be used mostly to encourage educational and research opportunities for Colombia’s universities and schools. However, the press release added this tidbit:

Both organizations intend to work together to identify joint initiatives that leverage Vast’s spacecraft, including Haven-1, scheduled to be the world’s first commercial space station, with AEC’s [Columbia’s space agency] growing ecosystem of data analytics, connectivity, and science education programs.

Vast already has similar agreements with Uzbeckistan, the Czech Republic, and the European Space Agency. Its Haven-1 single module station, set to launch next year for a three-year mission during which it will be occupied four different times for several weeks, still has no confirmed passengers or crews. One can’t help wondering if these international deals hint at the possibility that one or all of these international partners will fly astronauts there.

It is also possible Vast has been hunting for passengers, and as yet has not been able to convince anyone to buy a ticket. I expect everyone is waiting to see the condition of Haven-1, after it launches.

There is one problem that might make any final deal with Colombia difficult: Its Marxist president does not have a very good relationship with the Trump administration.

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

3 comments

  • Dick Eagleson

    That should be “Colombia” with a second ‘o.’

    And, yes, the nature of that nation’s current leadership is likely going to complicate any of Vast’s plans involving Colombia.

  • Dick: Oy. Laziness on my part. And habit. Now fixed. Thank you.

  • Dick Eagleson

    Colombia’s fault for choosing an eccentric spelling of its name. Columbia, with a ‘u,’ is normative in pretty much every other context – at least in the English-speaking world.

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