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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.


A home-made plane

An evening pause: Another example of someone who decides he wants to do something, and then goes out and does it. This STOL (short take-off and landing) home-built plane, dubbed Draco, was apparently a big hit in the small plane community. Sadly, in September the plane was totaled (no injuries) during a take-off with strong cross winds (video here).

Hat tip Cotour.

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

  • Andrew

    Good Grief.

    Apparently we are unaware that there is an entire INDUSTRY dedicated to manufacturing KITS to build REAL AIRPLANES. Here is the magazine for that industry,
    https://www.kitplanes.com/
    My faves, partly because they can be made CHEAPLY are these.
    https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=airdrome+aeroplanes+

  • Alex Andrite

    The STOL bush pilot competition videos out of Alaska are a real treat. Look them up.
    My son in Fairbanks, a detail construction carpenter, worked for a family who had their back country home and outbuildings built by him and the team.
    During winter months, they would truck then “snow mobile” huge multiple sleds of building supplies off and onto the building site, across hard frozen tundra, marsh, and lakes. Then during spring and summer they would get flown in to the site, lake landing or short gravel sand bar landings, to complete the construction.
    He would always take his job site dog along, a beautiful husky mix. But had to put him in a large burlap bag while flying in. Husky loved the sled rides, but got pretty tight when he saw the airplane.

  • Mike Borgelt

    Also look up EAA.org, the organisation that started for homebuilt airplanes.
    You can build not only WW1 “replicas” But actual useful traveling airplanes like the Van’s Aircraft series and the Bede BD-4 amongst many others. You’ll find aircraft in wood, aluminum or composites including pressurized turboprops capable of 300+ knots in the flight levels.
    My wife and I have owned a BD-4 for 20+ years and flown it all over Australia.

    When you’ve looked at Draco and how it is built realize that Mike Patey is one half of a set of twins and his brother has just as much energy and enthusiasm for airplanes as he does.

  • V-Man

    Draco may be down but might not be out. Mike is currently working on Scrappy, a highly-customized Carbon Cub with a race plane engine(!), but in one of his recent videos, he indicated that he will rebuild Draco afterward, with even more extreme modifications. Can’t wait!

  • Cotour

    THE PHEONIX RISES, at least a little one does:

    https://youtu.be/AvHNJNCgpfA

    You gotta love it.

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