Sometime between when I write this and you read it, NASA’s “Artemis II” spacecraft, with a crew of four astronauts, will pass over Mare Orientalis on the Moon on a flyby that marks the first return of human beings to the vicinity of the Moon, and indeed, to any place beyond Geosynchronous orbit, since the Apollo 17 flight in December 1972. Well over 50 years.
We’ve had a lot of promises, from vague, to seemingly pretty solid over that time. Enough that I had become cynical about them, and really didn’t believe this one was going to happen, until a few days before the actual launch.
There are many things a dedicated lifelong space-nerd could complain about with SLS/Ares and the Artemis spacecraft. Rather than reciting a litany about that, I’ll refer you to space historian Amy Shira Teitel’s video on the subject, “Artemis II: This Isn’t the Apollo Future We Were Promised”:
That pretty much covers the negatives.
But… on the other hand, this photo is kind of getting me back in the spirit:
I certainly did not really believe that there would be a return mission to the Moon before I finished animating my pilot episode about a settlement on the Moon. I’m almost certainly going to get further and further into “alternate universe” territory (“AU” in the SF fan jargon — nothing to do with astronomical units, I’m afraid).
In a few days — April 12th — it’ll also be the 65th anniversary of human spaceflight, since Yuri Gagarin’s flight into Earth orbit in 1961. I have been hoping to finish animation by then. It’s a bit dicey at the moment — either I get it done in this coming week, or I won’t make it. Wouldn’t be the first deadline I’ve blown through, regrettably. But at least I haven’t really promised this.
In one sense, I haven’t promised much. The fundraiser for production work on the pilot for “Lunatics!” fell through in 2012. In a financial sense, I should probably have just given it up there and moved on to something else. But I really wanted to make this thing, so we pressed on, and now, 14 years later, I’m still plugging, and all by myself at this point (although with followers on social media, the Fediverse, and of course, some patrons on Patreon, for whom I am extremely grateful!).
There’s only a handful of shots left, and not very hard ones, I believe. Most of the hard stuff is done. So I think I might still make it by the 12th (next Sunday). That would be a pretty cool achievement. I’m certainly going to try.
Of course, there will be additional production steps — more audio work, especially for the 5.1 surround mix, and all the extras and menu work that goes into mastering a DVD after that. I’m going to have to put off thinking about steps beyond that after I get to the important milestone of finishing the animation. I’m not sure what that’s going to feel like, exactly. It’s been a long time in coming, and it’s a big step.
Though not quite as big as actually going to the Moon for real!
Artemis II is primarily an engineering mission. I believe this will lead into a landing in a couple of years. They are proceeding fairly slowly, and plans are still in flux, from what I’ve been hearing. But I am starting to feel some of that excitement again. It’s a good feeling that I have been missing for a long time.
One can of course, note the irony of this happening in the messed up America we have today. But it’s worth noting that 1968, when Apollo 8 took astronauts to the Moon for the first time, was not one of our best years, either. Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinated. We were embroiled in a hopeless war in Vietnam. And Nixon was elected president. Stressful times then, too. With many of the same problems as today, more or less.
But progress does happen. Artemis II carries a crew much more representative than the 100% white and male crews of Apollo. Perhaps ironic from the white Christian nationalist, anti-DEI government we currently are enduring. But then, the wheels started rolling on this project well before Trump’s first term, and this mission plan was developed during Biden’s term. Some things have escaped the rot (though for his part, Trump has contributed a proposed budget slashing NASA and other science funding, actually during the Artemis II flight, which is tasteless, absurd, and self-defeating as usual).
In short: history is a bumpy ride, but I’ll take it.
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