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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
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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.


Russia’s Proton rocket launches weather satellite

Russia this morning used its Proton rocket to launch a weather satellite from Kazahkstan, successfully completing its first launch in 2023.

The 2023 launch race:

8 SpaceX
5 China
1 Rocket Lab
1 Japan
1 Russia

American private enterprise still leads China 9 to 5 in the national rankings, and the entire globe combined 9 to 7.

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 wonder if China will attempt to catch SpaceX and the rest of the US this year? They did alright in 2022 but Musk is planning a lot of flights.

  • pzatchok

    I do not think so.

    China did everything possible last year just to beat Space X by one, and that included several “secret test vehicle” launches of very short lived low orbit satellites.
    And a few were launched with their old solid fuel military rockets. ICBM launchers.

    I just do not think they have the payloads to keep up with last years pace.

  • Ray Van Dune

    I was planning to watch a Starlink launch at 2:32 pm Pacific, and when I went to the link at Next Spaceflight, I saw it had been shifted to 5:32 pm, within the last few hours since I last checked! These last-minute several-hour shifts seem to have been happening a lot lately. Is SpaceX perhaps trying to keep someone off-balance?

  • Ray Van Dune: The launch today was never a Starlink launch. It was a launch putting up satellites for different customers. It was also supposed to launch yesterday but weather forced a scrub to today.

    SpaceX needs to have weather right at both the launchpad and in the ocean where the 1st stage will land. It thus also requires it to be able to shift schedules fast and frequently in order to launch as much as it does. Thus, these frequent late changes are simply its normal way of doing business.

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