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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.


Weather delays New Shepard’s Shatner launch one day

Capitalism in space: Because of high winds predicted for tomorrow, Blue Origin has delayed its next suborbital flight of New Shepard, carrying four private citizens including William Shatner, for one day to October 13th.

The launch is scheduled for 9:30 am (Eastern), with live coverage beginning at 8 am (Eastern) on Blue Origin’s website. Be warned, however. If you watch with the sound on you will likely have to listen to a lot of hype and blather from the company’s announcers, who routinely can’t keep their mouths shut and have to tell us over and over and over again how “spectacular” and “breath-taking” and “historic” this all is.

If they do pause in their hyperbole, however, listening to Shatner during the flight will likely be worth it. The man has wit and knows how to use it.

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

5 comments

  • Phill O

    Will the flight or vehicle be labeled The Enterprise?

  • mpthompson

    Space, the final frontier…

    He’s just got to say it once while floating in space.

  • Phill O: The vehicle already has a name, New Shepard.

  • Mark

    I hope Shatner, while weightless for 4 minutes and at 66 miles altitude, does not say ‘Beam me up, Scotty!’

    Contrary to what popular culture promotes, ‘Beam me up, Scotty! ‘ was never said in an episode of the TV series Star Trek or in Star Trek movies.

    So I don’t want him starting now.

    However Shatner could say ‘Beam me down, Elon!’.

  • Col Beausabre

    The hype machine has begun – ninety minutes on two TV channels. You;d think the other three people don’t exist and all Shatner has to do is flap his arms to go to space. TV has a term, “stunt casting” when a celebrity appears on an episode for no apparent reason except to juice ratings. I propose we call celeb flights like this whose purpose is just publicity “stunt missions” and the individuals as “stunt crew members”

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