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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.


Arion Press – Making books by hand

An evening pause: Hat tip Cotour, who notes, “Understanding where we came from,” but asks “But where exactly are we going?”

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

9 comments

  • mpthompson

    Fascinating video. Thanks to Cotour for sharing.

  • John

    Oh I know where we’re going!!! We could burn them!

  • Cool video. I lost touch with a friend in San Francisco decades ago. His name: Jeff Raymond. That _could_ be him. I just can’t tell.

  • wayne

    John–

    Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
    “We must burn the books, Montag. All the books”
    https://youtu.be/ZaLJ10v4xUA
    3:38

  • Michael

    When I was a kid we had a friend who owned a print shop. He did printing of brochures and leaflets and such by hand. He had a hand powered press and millions of letters he used for making documents. I don’t think he ever did full books. Every once and a while he would let me help put a page together. Lots of work.

  • Jeff Wright

    I would like to see all metal books…with each back ” page ” reversed to use as a printing plate.

  • wayne

    Jeff–
    Great Idea!
    (So– whom remembers mimeograph machines?)

    ->on the other end of the spectrum, entirely–

    The First Serious Problem Solved by AI: Protein Folding
    PSW Science Meeting 2,445 (September 24, 2021)
    John Moult University of Maryland
    https://youtu.be/Y4nCYlyRMD8
    2:21:55

    “A reliable general method for accurately predicting protein two and three dimensional structure from one dimensional amino acid sequence information is something of a holy grail in protein science that has long eluded the best and most creative approaches of scientists. The recent success of AI programs to do better at this not only provides a powerful new tool to researchers, it also is a dramatic example of the rapid acceleration on the power of AI programs.”

  • Wayne

    “(So– whom remembers mimeograph machines?)”

    I am appalled that you did not link to the scene in ‘Fast Times at Ridgemont High” ( 1982 Heckerling) where tests are passed out and all the kids start sniffing the paper (alcohol from the mimeograph). Yeah, that was me, and everyone else.

    Some teachers had mimeograph machines in the ‘back room’ off the classroom, and you had to let the ink dry a bit, or it smear.

  • wayne

    Blair–
    holy cow, can’t believe that clip didn’t come to mind!

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