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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.


America’s Iron Giants

An evening pause: Technology developed with slide rules and the English system of measurements, more than half a century ago, that still works today.

Hat tip Tom Biggar.

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

7 comments

  • Peter Francis

    So fascinating. The industrial engineering behind post-war technology is sooo not recognized enough.

  • D McMillan

    That entire YouTube channel had similarly answering stuff, but it seems to have gone fallow, which I really regret.

  • ” Technology developed with slide rules and the English system of measurements, more than half a century ago, that still works today.”

    Like the B-52?

  • wayne

    “Master Hands”
    1936
    [Flint, Michigan Chevrolet assembly Plant]
    Jam Handy Organization
    Prelinger Archives 4K scan from 35mm print.
    https://youtu.be/Pr8rCNaASlc
    31:48

    Selected for the 1999 National Film Registry

  • David Walden

    Who is John Galt?

  • Joe

    Germany was very advanced, but thankfully not enough, how does a civilization that advanced fall into the traps Germany fell into?
    David, indeed, Atlas Shrugged should be mandatory reading .

  • Edward

    Joe asked: “how does a civilization that advanced fall into the traps Germany fell into?

    Technological advancement is different from social, political, or economic advancement.

    Socialism (NAZI is an acronym for a name that translates to National Socialist German Workers’ Party) sounds like it is a fair system that provides for everyone. “From each according to his ability, from each according to his need” sounds completely fair, but the reality is that it does not work, because too many people pretend to be less-abled and overly needy. Sure, everyone is equal, but as Orwell pointed out, some are more equal than others. Specifically, the leaders.

    It is how other nations fell into the trap. Venezuela being a recent example.

    This is how a civilization as advanced as the United States, and especially its Democratic Party, is falling into a similar trap.

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