Hope & Disappointment: the Artemis Mission by Diane Burton

 I'm a procrastinator of the first order. Usually, I'm writing my post the night before. But this time, I started thinking about my post last week--as soon as I learned about the launch of the Artemis 1 Moon Launch. I've written about this mission before. So exciting. The first woman and person of color would step on the moon. 

Those of you who know your myths remember that Artemis was Apollo's sister. It makes sense that the new mission sending women to the moon would use the designation Artemis. Until 1979, space exploration was the domain of men. (Did I just hear "boo, hiss"?) Now, NASA is making up for the omission of women in a big way by sending women to the moon. Also, the flight director for the first time is a woman.

Below is what we thought we'd see on Monday.

Artist's depiction of Artemis 1 launch. NASA

So, what's the objective of the Artemis mission? Artemis 1 will send an Orion spacecraft deep into space (farther than the Apollo astronauts went) to test the craft for the crewed mission. Artemis 2 (2024) will carry astronauts around the moon. Artemis 3 (2025) will have astronauts land on the moon.

Before you say haven't we done that already? Yes, but... This time the plan is to go farther. To Mars. The Artemis mission is like a stepping stone to go farther into space.

Regular readers know what a fan I am of space exploration. Whenever I get a chance, I talk about NASA and where humankind is going into the new frontier. It's exciting. It's fulfilling President Kennedy's promise to explore this galaxy of ours. It's hope for the future.

With hope comes disappointment, sometimes. NASA is checking, double checking, triple checking all systems to make sure everything works perfectly. The space agency called off Monday's launch because of an engine cooling issue. Even though the Orion spacecraft is unmanned, they aren't taking any chances.

So disappointing.

My mother's favorite saying was "better safe than sorry." So even though Orion is only carrying mannikins (plus Snoopy, a NASA tradition), the space agency must ensure that everything works properly. So, we until Saturday. Hopefully, the problem will be fixed in time.

Image credit: Peanuts Worldwide

A plush Snoopy, in astronaut uniform, will serve as a zero-gravity indicator aboard Orion.

Besides exploration for exploration's sake, why is it important? I seldom give in to negativity. But sometimes it pays to be realistic. What happens if we use up all of Earth's resources? What if we pollute our environment beyond saving? Doomsday prediction?

I wrote a novella about having a backup plan. In Mission to New Earth, a group of astronauts set off for a new planet safe enough for Earth's inhabitants. 

Blurb:

Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to expedite exploration of new planets for a possible new home. When new crises ensue—a giant tsunami and the threat of nuclear winter—the timeline changes. Eight years of training crammed into four. Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, but are they ready for the one-way trip? Will the Goldilocks planet prove just right for Earth’s inhabitants? Before time runs out.

 Mission to New Earth is available at: 

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Billionaires in Space by Diane Burton

image credit: space.com

 July brought two huge events. In the first, Richard Branson (Virgin Galactic) plus four others were launched into suborbital space aboard the VSS Unity 282,000 feet above Earth. 

image credit: Virgin Galactic

Branson tweeted: I was once a child with a dream looking up to the stars. Now I'm an adult in a spaceship looking down to our beautiful Earth. To the next generation of dreamers: if we can do this, just imagine what you can do.

Nine days later, Jeff Bezos (the richest person in the world) along with three others traveled into suborbital space aboard New Shepard, a rocket topped by a capsule. They reached a height of 351,120 feet above Earth. New Shepard was named for Alan Shepard, the first American to fly in space.

image credit: Joe Raedle/Gettyimages

Besides Bezos, his brother, and 18-year-old Oliver Daemon (a Dutch physics student, 82-year-old Wally Funk finally realized her dream. Wally is a member of the famous (or infamous) "Mercury 13", a group of women who completed all the tests required of the original Mercury astronauts yet were denied the opportunity to go into space because of their gender. Wally has the distinction of being the oldest person in space.

Funk said: "It was great. I loved it. I can hardly wait to go again."

image credit: Blue Origin

As I watched the landing of New Shepard, I was captivated by Wally's enthusiasm. The picture (above) of her exit from the capsule says it all.

Even though I knew the names of every Mercury and Apollo astronaut, I never knew about those women. Shame on NASA for denying them their dreams.

I've always been infatuated with the space program. I lined the bulletin boards in my classroom with pictures from space as well as the astronauts. If I'd been given the opportunity to go into space back then, I would've jumped at the chance. Until Wally's trip, I always thought I was too old. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm younger than her. 😊

When I blogged about my novella Mission to New Earth, I asked readers if they had the chance would they go into space. Most who replied said they'd go if they could come back. My thoughts exactly. We all thought of our families and wouldn't want to leave them forever, like the characters in Mission. Their task was to explore a "Goldilocks" planet, one that was just right for humans. However, the planet was so far away, they couldn't return. A one-way trip. Unlike the billionaires, who hoped they would return in one piece.

But what have these two historic launches proved? Is their a market for tourism in space? Would customers be willing to fork over hundreds of thousands of dollars for the chance to say they've been in space? I'm pretty sure there's already a waiting list.

I'll ask the question again: if money were no object, would you go into space?

Blurb:

Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to ramp up exploration of new planets for a possible new home. As Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, are they ready for the one-way trip? Will they be in time?

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NASA's Mission to Titan by Diane Burton

When I read that NASA has a new mission, and it's to Titan, Saturn's moon, I did a happy dance. (I'm sure you heard the thudding.) I am still geeked about this. I wrote a novella, Mission to New Earth, that starts on Titan. Two years later, Liza O'Connor wrote Destination: Titan, Book 1 of her Leaving Earth series. I researched so much about Titan to write my book that I thought I knew a lot about Saturn's largest moon. Then, Liza wrote many blog posts about that place. Wow. I didn't know as much as I thought.

Thank goodness for NASA and all its pictures.

Anyway, I feel like I have a special affinity for the newest of NASA's future explorations. Scientists think that Titan is now what Earth was billions of years ago. By researching this moon, they believe it will "revolutionize what we know about life in the universe."

You know how NASA sent Rover (a land-based robotic vehicle) to Mars, its job to scoop up dirt and analyze it? The mission to Titan will be fantastically different. Dragonfly is a rotocraft, and it will fly to dozens of locations, picking up surface materials and taking off again to fly to the next location. 

What's so special about Titan? 

If you saw the 2009 movie Star Trek (J.J. Abrams' reboot of the ST franchise), you'll remember that spectacular sequence when the Enterprise comes out of warp in Titan's atmosphere. Was that cool or what?

Dragonfly will use 13 years of data gathered by the Cassini spacecraft. Titan has clouds, rain, rivers, lakes, and oceans of methane and ethane, (Guess we won't be swimming there.) It also has sand dunes and mountains.  It's the second largest moon in our solar system and bigger than Mercury. Titan has a nitrogen-based atmosphere, like Earth. The most important reason to find out more about Titan is that it's filled with such a variety of organic compounds that it could tell us more about the building blocks of life.

I hope I live long enough to see Dragonfly do its thing. It will leave Earth in 2026 and won't get to Titan until 2034. But if I'm still around, you'll find me glued to the TV, just like when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.


Now for a commercial break. 

Mission to New Earth, a science fiction novella

Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to expedite exploration of new planets for a possible new home. When new crises ensue—a giant tsunami and the threat of nuclear winter—the timeline changes. Eight years of training crammed into four. Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, but are they ready for the one-way trip? Will the Goldilocks planet prove just right for Earth’s inhabitants? Before time runs out.

Amazon ~ Amazon UK ~ Kobo ~ iTunes ~ B&N ~ Smashwords

If you want to read more about the Dragonfly Mission and Titan, go to  https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/moons/saturn-moons/titan/overview

For more photos of Titan, go to  https://www.space.com/12638-amazing-photos-titan-saturn-moon.html

Holidays and Space Exploration by Diane Burton

Several years ago, I wrote a short story titled "Christmas in Space" for a holiday anthology on The Roses of Prose blog. I did a lot of research for this short story just to be sure I had facts straight. I even forced myself to rewatch movies like Avatar, Oblivion, Interstellar, and Passengers to learn about the effects of cryosleep. If you've read any of my blog posts, you know what a hardship that was. 😊

After the holidays, I couldn't let that story go. I was fascinated by teams from Earth who were willing to leave everything behind. So, I expanded the short story into a novella, MISSION TO NEW EARTH. What reasons would be so compelling to find a new home for humans? I came up with global warming, depletion of natural resources, earthquakes and resulting tidal waves, even the possibility of a supervolcano in Yellowstone. 

With info from the Mars One Mission, I discovered the requirements and training for my characters who would take a one-way trip to a "Goldilocks" planet--one that is just right for humans. In my story, our moon and Mars had already been colonized, but it wasn't possible to evacuate all Earth's inhabitants there. They needed a place where humans could live as we do here.

United Earth Space Agency was sending three teams that represented the United Americas, Euro-Africa, and Asia to find three Goldilocks planets. The final training for the teams took place on Titan (Saturn's moon).

Even with expanding the story, I kept one detail the same. One team reached a planet beyond our solar system on Christmas Day. I gave that a lot of thought. Not all the inhabitants of Earth are Christian, not even the majority. Since the three teams preparing to locate Goldilocks' planets represented all of Earth, I thought it was important to include mention of other religions.

It was our last Christmas in civilization. That evening, we celebrated with the other teams. A party that combined Earth’s December celebrations—Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Mawlid an-Nabī, Dhanu Sankranti, Bodhi Day, even Omisoka because none of us would be here for New Year’s Eve. Secular symbols made sure those who didn’t follow a religion weren’t left out.

World-building for this story took as much time and energy as a full-length novel. I don't regret the effort. The book may be small (in length), but the "message" is important.

One of the characters summed it up at the end of the story.

“As you already know, I’ve never been a religious man.” Tom had made that clear on many occasions. “This voyage has changed me. Since we came out of cryo, I keep thanking God for letting us survive. Now I thank Him . . . or Her—” He glanced at Gloria who had strong beliefs about gender neutrality with regard to the Supreme Being. “—for providing humankind with a new beginning. May we not screw it up the way we did Earth.”

No matter how you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you much happiness.

Would you go on a one-way trip to explore a new planet? Would you do it to save humankind?

In 2172, Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to expedite exploration of new planets for a possible new home. When new crises ensue—a giant tsunami and the threat of nuclear winter—the timeline changes. Eight years of training crammed into four.

Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, but are they ready for the one-way trip? Will the Goldilocks planet prove just right for Earth’s inhabitants? Before time runs out.

Amazon ~ Amazon UK ~ Kobo ~ iTunes ~ Smashwords ~ Barnes & Noble

Fly Me To The Moon by Diane Burton

 If you were around in 1969, you and your family were probably glued to the television set on July 20^th. I was. Since that was in the days before recording shows on VCR tapes (which we hadn’t even heard of then), my dad aimed his Super 8 movie camera at the TV screen and recorded Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepping out of a spacecraft onto the moon’s surface.

Exciting times.

Guess what? By the end of next year, we’re going back to the moon. SpaceX, the private spaceflight company, plans to send a crewed spacecraft around the moon in 2018 in time for the 50^th anniversary of the first trip around the moon. NASA, too, plans to return to the moon but not until 2021.

I don’t care who goes first. I’m just excited that we’re going back. You may ask why. We’ve been there, done that. Yes, we have. But we haven’t been that far into space since 1972. The flights have been to the space station. NASA has to contract out space launches.

Since this blog isn’t a scientific one, what’s the connection? I write science fiction romance, still considered part of paranormal romance. “Adventure and Romance in this world and beyond” is the subtitle of my blog. It’s what my writing is all about. Notice “adventure” comes first in that subtitle.

Space adventure. My first love.

When I write about adventures in far off planets or on spaceships, I use my imagination to build those worlds. Of course, I use movies and books for ideas. Pinterest, too. But soon those worlds won’t be fictional. Not in my lifetime and probably not in my children’s. Maybe my grandchildren will see us venture beyond our moon to other planets in our solar system. Maybe their grandchildren will get the chance to venture beyond that.

Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

In my science fiction novella, Mission to New Earth, pioneers fly to a Goldilocks planet to settle, explore, and populate.

Would you go on a one-way trip to explore a new planet? Would you do it to save humankind?

In 2172, Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to expedite exploration of new planets for a possible new home. When new crises ensue—a giant tsunami and the threat of nuclear winter—the timeline changes. Eight years of training crammed into four.

Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, but are they ready for the one-way trip? Will the Goldilocks planet prove just right for Earth’s inhabitants? Before time runs out.

Amazon ~ Kobo ~ iTunes ~ Smashwords ~ Barnes & Noble

Researching Ghosts by Diane Burton

Have you ever started researching a topic only to discover you’ve spent the better part of an hour going from one site to another to another? Those pesky side links. If I'd been at the library, my table would've been covered with books.

In a HubSpot (marketing site) article about bad habits, the author wrote about Black Hole Browsing. Although I’d never heard of that term, I knew exactly what it meant. I’ve fallen victim to that bad habit more than once. In fact, while researching the topic of ghosts for this post, I visited way too many sites.

Casper is my idea of a ghost. Although I’ve never seen a ghost, I believe others have because they believe they did. What how could I possibly write about ghosts when I write science fiction? That took some researching and before I knew it—Wham!—I’d fallen into that Black Hole.

Back on topic. I do believe the spirits of our deceased loved ones still care about us and watch over us. My main character in Mission to New Earth does, too. (Funny how that works.) An only child, Sara was suddenly orphaned at 26. We don’t think of adults as orphans, do we? After author Pauline Baird Jones wrote about losing her parents and thereby making her an orphan, I thought about myself. I guess you could say I’m an orphan, too, since both my parents are gone, though not as traumatically as Pauline’s or my character, Sara. My parents died of old age and complications of COPD and Alzheimer’s. My sibs and I had plenty of time to prepare.

Losing her parents made Sara’s decision to sign up for a one-way trip to a new planet a lot easier. Then I started to wonder. What would Sara’s folks think about her leaving the teaching world and going into training to be an astronaut? Would they approve, be fearful for her, or caution her to be safe and stay home? Would they like her choice of mate, Marsh Rayburn, former SEAL and her second in command on the mission? I never go into that in the story, but I like to think they would watch over Sara, keeping her safe. More like guardian angels than ghosts.

Mission to New Earth

Blurb:

Would you go on a one-way trip to explore a new planet? Would you do it to save humankind?

Earth’s overpopulation and dwindling resources force the United Earth Space Agency to expedite exploration of new planets for a possible new home. When new crises ensue—a giant tsunami and the threat of nuclear winter—the timeline changes. Eight years of training crammed into four. Sara Grenard and her team prepare for launch, but are they ready for the one-way trip? Will the Goldilocks planet prove just right for Earth’s inhabitants? Before time runs out.

Amazon ~ Kobo ~ iTunes ~ ARe ~ Smashwords ~ Barnes & Noble

Throughout the month of September, I’m running a Giveaway for a $10 Amazon Gift Card. Pop over to my blog to enter. 

Diane Burton writes science fiction romance, romantic suspense, and mysteries. She blogs here on the 13^th of each month. She is also a contributor to The Roses of Prose blog, posting there on the 30^th. On Mondays, she muses about various topics on her own blog.

How Blogging Helps

Before writing last month’s post, I didn’t have a good title for my sci-fi novella. Usually, I don’t have that problem. Titles generally come easy for me. A couple haven’t, but none like this one. The story started as a short story on The Roses of Prose blog, called “Christmas in Space.” Considering my story was the only science fiction and the others all contemporary, I felt out of place. A non-conformist.

But, as I’ve written before, the story stayed with me. I wanted to know more about these characters who were about to embark on a one-way trip to a planet far, far away. In fact, so far away, it was out of our solar system. I admired the bravery of the six astronauts, much the way I admired the real astronauts who’d ventured so far into the space between Earth and its moon. Only the real astronauts knew they were returning—returning to friends and family. My fictional astronauts weren’t.

Even worse, at least in my mind, they would be put into cryosleep for 99% of the trip. I mean, what’s the use of traveling out of our solar system if you don’t get to see where you’re going and where you’ve been? I’d want to see Neptune, Pluto (even if it isn’t a planet anymore), and beyond. If I felt that way, surely my characters would.

Getting all these thoughts out on blogs, helped me understand what my characters were going through. Writing the story was not a problem. Coming up with a title was. I went through various ideas, none of which set well with me. I asked writer friends for help. Though they gave good suggestions, again none resonated with me. Or made me feel as if it would work.

Finally, I had to title last month’s blog post here. Easy, peasy. I talked about their mission. They were heading out to explore a Goldilocks planet for Earth’s inhabitants, a place of refuge for those living on a dying planet. They were determined to find a New Earth. Hence the title of the post, “Mission to New Earth.”

That’s when the lightbulb popped on over my head. Mission to New Earth was a perfect name for the book. Forget the Christmas angle (though that’s still in the story). It was more than a Christmas story. Besides, more religions were represented by the astronauts than Christianity. In real life, astronauts come from all faiths, all nationalities, all races. Why would my characters be any different?

So, thanks to posting on this blogsite and others, I’ve learned more about my story than doing character analyses, filling out personality charts, or any other methods of learning about my characters. Perhaps it’s reducing an idea to 500 words that really helps. It made me focus on what’s important.

Mission To New Earth, which will be released on August 31^st, is available for pre-order at Amazon for 99 cents. https://amzn.com/B01JXZR0AK

Diane Burton writes science fiction romance, romantic suspense, and mysteries. She blogs here on the 13^th of each month. She is also a contributor to The Roses of Prose blog, posting there on the 30^th. On Mondays, she muses about various topics on her own blog.