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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.


Bob Lind – Elusive Butterfly

An evening pause: Performed in 1965.

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

2 comments

  • Andi

    A little off-topic but vaguely connected: In school back in the late ’60s I wrote a computer program that would hide in unused memory of the mainframe computer I was working on. When it detected that the memory it was residing in was about to be allocated to a running program, it would find another unused chunk of memory big enough for it to hide in, copy itself there, and wait until that memory was about to be used, rinse and repeat. It kept track of its activities, and every 100 or so moves it would write a message out on the system console and ring the bell. The operators never did figure out what was going on!

    What does all that have to do with this song? Well, I named the program…

    “The elusive butterfly”

  • Cotour

    Funny, I was waiting to see how you tied your computer work in with the song.

    I was about 6 years old at the time and this song among many others brings me back to that carefree time whenever I hear them.

    Elton Johns, Rock Around the Clock? I am in my basement with the smell of stale gas and an old Vespa fixing and figuring out how the thing worked and how to order a new set of rings to get it to run. From motorcycles to cars, took them all apart and put most back together. I don’t know how my parents put up with me.

    In those days it was the Sears catalogue for tools, car magazines and manuals if you could find them for information and going to the junk yard or auto parts store for parts. That in itself was a major chore. But you learned how to be resourceful.

    Today? I happened to have to rebuild my Town and Country’s entire front and rear suspension system over Covid. Either that or buy a new auto and was not in the mood to spend $50k at that particular moment.

    I sat at my computer found exactly what I needed, from brakes to shocks to whatever, got them from several sources, paid with my credit card and it ALL came through my front door by either UPS or Amazon. I did not have to go anywhere. And I watched several other mechanics who were doing the same work and got lots a great information, tips and special tools I needed. And that was GOLD. The systems on cars yesterday besides the basic mechanics have little relation to the computer controlled and monitored systems of today. It was a great learning experience.

    I needed an entire new/used rear beam axel, found what I needed in Chicago on Ebay, ordered it and had it within 5 days, it walked through my front door on the shoulder of the UPS man.

    Things certainly have changed since 1965.

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