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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.


No 6207 A Study in Steel

An evening pause: A fascinating and well-filmed documentary from 1935 describing how a British company then built locomotives. Note the lack of construction helmets, gloves, or safety glasses. Note also the number of workers involved. Today most of this work is automated, making it more precise and efficient. Then, however, they did not yet have such technology, and instead found ways to build very sophisticated machines using the skills of ordinary humans.

Hat tip Edward Thelen.

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

6 comments

  • Robert Pratt

    Oh come on, they had “strangely looking hats to keep the sweat from their eyes!” Very good film.

  • Jwing

    Amazing, collard button-down white shirts, vests, and hats….mostly made of wool and cotton tweed. regular shoes not boots!

  • Localfluff

    “Who is now to say that the day of the craftsman is no more?”
    Great movie clip! Please dig further where you found this.

    War of the Worlds begins with the idea of an alien civilization watching us. Which is an interesting thought experiment. Like we watch ants. How clumsily, but still productive like all survivable random biology, they would think, I think, the items of our industry are manufactured. And we were the first to leave the planet. Omnius Terra venerandum. All life on the Earth bow to our herding and gardening, because we have proven to be so superior to reach out into the infinity. All life wishes to get a ride along with us on our Noah’s Ark to eternity.

  • wayne

    Edward– excellent selection!

    As well, I would highly recommend “Master Hands,” 4 -part series produced by the Jam Handy Organization from 1936, detailing the manufacture & production of Chevrolet’s in Flint, Michigan. (not just assembly–they manufactured everything from the ground up.)
    >Selected for preservation in 1999 by the National Film Registry.
    Parts 1-2 start out slow, but are also fascinating nonetheless. (all 4 parts run about 30 minutes total.)

    https://archive.org/details/MasterHa1936_3

  • Joe

    Fascinating, was that a plasma ark they used to cut the sides out with?, I wonder if this kind of labor intensive building happens any where in the world today, not talking about ship building, but locomotives, China maybe?

  • I love watching things being built. I worked for a company that had me in various Boeing plants in the Seattle area, and I’d sometimes get so caught up in watching the manufacturing that I’d neglect my job for a bit. Humans, and life in general, are the antithesis of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. From chaos; order. Good stuff.

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