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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.


Watching Astra’s launch attempt tonight

Capitalism in space: Astra has made its live stream available for its orbital launch attempt tonight, scrubbed last night about ten minutes before liftoff.

This will be the company’s fourth attempt to launch a payload into orbit. The first three attempts failed in some manner.

I have embedded the company’s live stream, provided by NASASpaceflight LLC and Astra Space Inc., below the fold.

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

  • Localfluff

    I haven’t paid much attention to space flight during the last couple of years. Looking at it now, SO MUCH IS HAPPENING!

    If you who read this were lingering along with space news day by day like I did, and I do now again. Please take a couple of years’ perspective, and it is a huge step for human kind. Again. Perhaps not this single launch, but on the whole it is getting much more intensive now year by year. Spaceflight is the future. It is happening.

  • Localfluff: What is happening now is what I predicted would happen a quarter century ago, in my final chapter of Genesis: The Story of Apollo 8:

    The new century will see a renaissance of space exploration as exciting and as challenging as the space race in the 1960’s. And this rebirth will happen under the banner of freedom and private property, the very principles for which the United States fought the Cold War.

  • Questioner

    Congratulations to Astra for the success. The rocket design, in which the first stage carries the greater part of the propulsion capacity, is interesting.

  • Jay

    Congratulations to Astra on reaching orbit.!

  • Chris Lopes

    The more companies who can do this, the better. This one almost looked like it was launched from someone’s backyard. It had a very low tech feel to it, which is ironic considering we are talking about an orbital spacecraft. Perhaps that’s where the technology is right now. Pretty much anyone with money and know how (Blue Origin excepted) can put things in orbit. Very cool.

  • Questioner

    The second stage, which has a small engine that is pressure fed (no pumps), is unusually small compared to the first stage. This is why the end-of-burn speed of the first stage is here 4.1 km / s (2.7 km / s for Electron). With regard to the second stage and the overall rocket, there are definitely still opportunities to increase performance. For example, why don’t you use a vacuum version of the first stage engine and make the second stage much heavier. It should not add significantly to the overall manufacturing cost, but increase payload capacity and fairing diameter signficantly. What about the engine deal with Firefly? From which rocket production number will the new engine be used?

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