Author: Erin Penn

Geeking Science: Artemis Accords

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Government provided logo for the Artemis Accords

The Artemis Project (returning mankind to the Moon by 2026 to develop a testing station for technology to use when visiting other planets, a research station for learning about our Moon, and port for jumping off to explore Mars) has created the opportunity for the Artemis Accords. Over forty countries have signed the Accords, that is a fifth of Earth’s nations. (Note that the biggest “competitors” to the USA in space, China and Russia, have not joined.) 

This is something to Geek About!!!

“The accords establish a practical set of principles to guide space exploration cooperation among nations. … The Artemis Accords reinforce and implement key obligations in the 1967 Outer Space Treaty. They also strengthen the commitment by the United States and signatory nations to the Registration Convention, the Rescue and Return Agreement, as well as best practices NASA and its partners support, including the public release of scientific data. More countries are expected to sign the accords in the months and years ahead, which are advancing safe, peaceful, and prosperous activities in space.” (Bardan)

That said, the Artemis Accords are very USA centered in the interpretation of how space law should work, including the commercial activities such as mining. Both Russia and China object to that base. (Wikipedia)

The key principals in the Accords is as follows (from Lea):

  1. Peaceful Exploration of space
  2. Transparency / public release of scientific information
  3. Emergency Assistance
  4. Registration of Space Objects
  5. Preserving Heritage – Preserving robot or human landing sites of historical significance
  6. Space Resources – Extracting and using resources from celestial bodies is needed to explore space and permitted.
  7. Orbital Debris.

The full Artemis Accords wording can be found here: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Artemis-Accords-signed-13Oct2020.pdf

The Orbital Debris (Section 12) is an interesting addition and includes both reduction of the present debris and requiring all new space structures come with a de-orbit plan for safe disposal. I also adore the Transparency section.

Fingers-crossed, the spirit of international cooperation will continue.

Biography

Bardan, Roxana. “NASA Welcomes Greece as Newest Artemis Accords Signatory.” NASA. 2024 Feb 9. (https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-welcomes-greece-as-newest-artemis-accords-signatory/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Lea, Robert. “Artemis Accords: What are they & which countries are involved?” space.com. 2024 May 16. (https://www.space.com/artemis-accords-explained – last viewed 5/22/2024)

NASA. “The Artemis Accords.” (undated) (https://www.nasa.gov/artemis-accords/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

US Mission Unvie. “An Interview with NASA’s Kevin Conole.” US Mission to International Organizations in Vienna. 2022 February 25. (https://vienna.usmission.gov/nasas-kevin-conole-on-the-artemis-accords/ – last viewed 5/22/2024)

Wikipedia. “Artemis Accords.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_Accords – last viewed 5/22/2024

Editing Rant: Medium Matters

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Photo 2865655 © R. Gino Santa Maria / Shutterfree, Llc | Dreamstime.com (Picture paid for)

“The movie isn’t as good as the book.” “I don’t know why people think this statue is so great, I mean look at this photo of it.” “This song is awful (when played on my phone).”

“Medium” in art covers both the skill set needed to create the art (painting, photography, scrapbooking, violin, orchestra), and the materials used to create the artwork (marble, wood, instrument).

And when judging art, Medium Matters. One of the most amazing books I read was an urban fantasy by Darin Kennedy, The Mussorgsky Riddle. The mystery centered around a piano suite in ten movements (Pictures at an Exhibition) written by Mussorgsky, inspired by paintings at a show in the Imperial Academy of Arts from Viktor Hartmann. Plot, piano, and paintings mixed together (and if you hear it on audiobook, another artist is added into the mix).

Not any one medium is better than the other, but being aware of the limitations can help one appreciate the transference of art from one medium to another. How is a painting different from a sculpture? What happens when pop music is played by an orchestra (as sometimes happens with songs by Queen)? Should we judge a book against a movie or are they two different things with two different audiences?

I recently heard people comparing a single book to the three-season television show which spun off it, saying the secondary characters, which developed as the television show ran beyond the original story, lacked depth in the book. No kidding. Yet both the book and the television show felt the same as they explored victory and growth, adulthood and loss.

Other conversations I had recently compared black and white movies to technicolor television. Comics to graphic novels – and I’m not talking about long comics, I’m talking about well-loved science fiction and fantasy novels translated to book format, for example “More than Human” by Theodore Sturgeon (published 1953) released as a hardback graphic novel in 1978. Each of these have their own particular imprint on my soul.

Pulling this back to writing and reading. Medium Matters. Figure out what best fits your story. Is it a flash (under 1,000 words) or novel (75,000 words)? Should it be shrunk to a short story (5,000 words) or will a novella length be better (20,000 words)? Will one hundred words, precisely, for a drabble be the right size? Should it be a play, or a serial? Could it work in audiobook, and, if so, should one person or a cast read it?

Choose the presentation of the story. Write it to the end, then carve it like a statue until only the parts that should be there remain.

Book Review: Starter Villain

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Amazon Cover

Starter Villain by John Scalzi

BOOK BLURB ON AMAZON

Inheriting your uncle’s supervillain business is more complicated than you might think. Particularly when you discover who’s running the place.

Charlie’s life is going nowhere fast. A divorced substitute teacher living with his cat in a house his siblings want to sell, all he wants is to open a pub downtown, if only the bank will approve his loan.

Then his long-lost uncle Jake dies and leaves his supervillain business (complete with island volcano lair) to Charlie.

But becoming a supervillain isn’t all giant laser death rays and lava pits. Jake had enemies, and now they’re coming after Charlie. His uncle might have been a stand-up, old-fashioned kind of villain, but these are the real thing: rich, soulless predators backed by multinational corporations and venture capital.

It’s up to Charlie to win the war his uncle started against a league of supervillains. But with unionized dolphins, hyper-intelligent talking spy cats, and a terrifying henchperson at his side, going bad is starting to look pretty good.

In a dog-eat-dog world…be a cat.

 

MY REVIEW

A Whole Treat

Scalzi knows how to create imaginary worlds where an every-man protagonist moves through the “crazy” with grace and common sense to the amusement of his readers. Starter Villain is a perfect example of his mastery of the humor science fiction genre. I wish his worlds featured women with more agency, but I understand the author is basically doing a self-insert into the fantasy world so the main character will be male for him based on his usual style of writing.

Starter Villian is a fun, light-hearted romp with all the cool gadgets and villains of James Bond. Plus a layered plot, complicated characters, and dense world-building which is only noticeable after the fact when you go “I need to make this review longer, was the book actually good, not just enjoyable?” So yeah, the icing is pretty and the cake is fantastic.

Writing Exercise: The Stars of Character Development

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Photo 127476676 | Astrology © Dwnld777 | Dreamstime.com (Paid for)

Creating unique characters to play off each other can be difficult. How do you make them sound different, act different, be different? I usually tap into the Sixteen Personality Types, but much of that is crouched in scientific mumbo-jumbo making it hard to access especially when you just want to pants a story. Struggling with the difference between Extrovert and Introvert when all you want to do is write a scene right now can take all the wind out of your sails.

What other groups of personality architypes are there that a writer can take and run with?

Astrology could be tapped to make each of your characters different. Just google a sign – the definitions provided are involved from romantic features to preferred jobs, how they are good and bad at relationships, familiar and romantic – from there you have the basics of a character. And since it isn’t a “scientific” thing, the websites are much more accessible and often give humorous examples. You can use the Western Signs like Pisces and Scorpio or the Eastern Signs like Dragons and Rabbits.

WRITING ASSIGNMENT: Pick two astrological signs and create a scene of 50 to 250 words. Comment below how it changed your character development.

My Attempt: When the Stars Align (12/24/2023) – I had named the first character Leo just at random, but as the scene went on, I decided to match characters to star signs. Some of the characters I named because they were already showing those traits (Virgo/Virga), and others had personality quirks driven by their astrology name (Sagittarius). I found it really helped make the characters be different people without much effort. In the future, if I think my characters are sounding or acting too much the same, I might tap into these architypes again as a character development tool.