We are experiencing a new golden age for space and for the Franco-American relationship in this field. Led wholeheartedly by the Biden administration, American space policy is setting the pace for the international community with regard to the conquest of space. Reinstated in 2017 by the United States President Donald Trump after lying dormant for more than a decade, the National Space Council is the White House’s forum for inter-agency dialogue that defines and coordinates American space policy. With an estimated budget of over $60 billion for 2023, including $26 billion for the US Air Force and $25 billion for NASA, the United States accounts for nearly 60% of the world’s space budget.
Artemis is bringing in a new era of space exploration more than 50 years after the historic Apollo 11 moon landing, and more than twenty years after the establishment of a continuous human presence aboard the International Space Station. This programme aims to land the first woman and the first person of colour on the moon by 2025, and to establish, with international and commercial partners, a lasting presence on the lunar surface. As for the Artemis agreements, signed to date by 23 countries including France, these aim to define the principles of cooperation in civil exploration and in the use of the Moon, Mars, comets and asteroids for peaceful purposes. Artemis will thus help establish a new, world-wide, legal and ethical framework governing the peaceful and sustainable exploitation of space beyond the Moon. A significant leap forward from the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.
France has been a space power from the start, and the US recognizes its unique mastery in all sectors, whether civil, commercial or military. As a result, space is at the heart of the Franco-American relationship. At their meeting in Paris in November 2021, Vice- President Kamala Harris and President Macron made a commitment to strengthen cooperation with structural initiatives, including the establishment of an in-depth dialogue on space (the Comprehensive Dialogue on Space) which met for the first time in Paris in November 2022.
Commemorating the CNES’s 60th anniversary and sixty years of cooperation with NASA, France joined the Artemis agreements in Washington on June 7, 2022. With 23 bilateral agreements, the CNES is NASA’s second biggest partner after the Japanese agency. The meeting organized on November 30, 2022 at NASA headquarters, in the presence of the Vice-President of the United States and the President of the Republic during his state visit to Washington, crowned France’s status as the United States’ first European partner nation and leading international partner (alongside Japan).
Houston is the capital for astronauts, the epicentre of space exploration’s human dimension. From Jean-Loup Chrétien to Thomas Pesquet, and soon Sophie Adenot … all the astronauts who work with NASA come to train at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) and reside in Houston or its suburbs, such as Clearlake. Competing with Florida, California and Colorado to attract ‘New Space’ players, Houston has two advantages: its exceptional ecosystem in the field of health and its status as an historic capital for fossil fuels, which makes it the new go-to location for energy transition.
It is in this context that I invited two great witnesses, Jean- Loup Chrétien and Megan McArthur, to share their experiences and their dreams for space. A man, a woman. One born and trained in France, the other in the United States. An astronaut of the 1980s generation, and an astronaut of the 2000s in active service, and who was a member of Thomas Pesquet’s crew in 2021. How do they view the ongoing space revolution?
The ‘strategic intimacy’ between France and the United States – to use President Macron’s expression – borders, for these two space professionals, on a metaphysical intimacy.
Our conversation took place between December 2022 and January 2023 at the JSC near Houston, with the gracious support of Vanessa Wyche, who directs the NASA centre. We extend our warmest thanks to Mrs. Wyche.
V. B.
Valérie Baraban — Jean-Loup, in one of your books, you write that ‘space is the future of humanity’. You like to quote Constantin Tsiolkovsky, the Russian cosmic rocket scientist and an unjustly forgotten 19th century visionary, who said: ‘Earth is the cradle of humanity and one cannot spend one’s life in a cradle.’ Is space exploration born of a need for survival or is it a metaphysical impulse?
Jean-Loup Chrétien — From the moment we are conceived, the clock is ticking and the fight for survival begins. The embryo fights for survival, the new-born fights for survival, man spends his life fighting for his survival. Since it appeared on Earth 200,000 years ago, the human race has progressed little. Men continue to fight among themselves. But on the scale of the universe, 200,000 years is pretty short.
The instinct to explore is inscribed our genes. Man has always been fascinated by the immensity of the sky and its mysteries. Human beings are explorers.
I have noticed, throughout all my years of adventure in the third dimension, the extent to which we are inspired by altitude. When we see the strength, the beauty, the soul of our planet Earth in orbit, we are overwhelmed by a rare sensation, a kind of wisdom.
This message should convince us to all work together with exemplary international cooperation. Bits of this message seem to have been well received: the proof is the unwavering determination of the agencies that get women and men in orbit to cooperate, when their countries are officially at war. What a snub to politicians!
V. B. — Megan, what do these thoughts inspire in you?
Megan McArthur — I also think that humans are fundamentally explorers at heart. We are curious creatures; we always try to push back the boundaries of what we know and what we can do and challenge ourselves to understand our surroundings. Having explored our planet, space is obviously that next frontier. It has been many years since anyone has gone to the Moon. If we want to achieve our dreams and push our boundaries farther out, we need vast international cooperation and partnership with our fellow beings. Seen from outside, the Earth forms an indivisible whole. We should be going outward together into our solar system.
V. B. — The American science fiction author Larry Niven joked that the dinosaurs disappeared because they didn’t have a space program. Megalomania or cautious foresight? In an article published in 2017 (1), Elon Musk said that the human species, in order not to die out, must colonize planets other than Earth. To become, in a way, ‘multi-planetary’, which implies that we should be able not only to travel, but also to live in space. What do you astronauts think of these exponential changes?
M. M. — The idea of space exploration changing exponentially or changing very quickly is interesting, because to those of us who are in the profession, it can actually feel like it is happening quite slowly. Especially when you are waiting your turn to go into space for the first time! When as a child I started becoming aware of space, the last person had already left the Moon some time ago. Over the past 20 years, what has seen exponential change is our ability to put humans in space and keep them there. In my career lifetime, I have been very fortunate to see the development of our ability to live in space, to become citizens of space, in a way. That has been a very, very dramatic shift which will enable us to do what we are going to do next, which is live for long periods on the Moon while working toward the ability to send people to Mars. Seen against the scale of human history, these future developments are vertiginous. And they will happen all the faster with the participation of an increasing number of countries and private entities.
I am a big fan of science fiction movies and novels, and I dream of a future where many more people have access to space. That is the future we are preparing. We are living through a very exciting time right now and I am very impatient to see what is going to happen next.
Human beings are relatively fragile when compared with the space environment. The challenges that exist in low Earth orbit will get more difficult in transit to a place like Mars. We will be a little more protected when we get there. But the challenges are numerous: radiation of course, and the weightlessness that our bodies is not used to, not to mention isolation and the sense of confinement. Being in a confined and I will say unnatural environment are some of the hazards that we have to take into account when we think about sending people millions of kilometres away from their home planet without the possibility of making a U-turn. The space station allows us to develop a lot of those skills that we are going to need for going on farther.
J.-L. C. — Let’s go back to what Constantin Tsiolkovsky said. I do believe that our destiny will obligatorily take shape through the immensity of the cosmos. But before we see Elon Musk’s prophesy (the multi-planetary human being) come true, we still have to overcome many points of transcendence. The planets of our solar system are not very accessible. Mars alone will be able to welcome our explorers one day. Exoplanets (2), those Earth-like planets that orbit another star, are frequently declared a nearby goal that would allow humans to find refuge and survive. A few figures to help grasp the ineptitude of such a proposal: the maximum speed reached by a manned space vehicle today is 40,000 km/h, or just over 11 km/s. At the speed of light (300,000 km/s), it would take us four years to reach the nearest exo-planet. Imagine if, one day, we were able to reach 100th of this speed, or 3,000 km/s (Paris-New York in just over a second, around the Earth in just over 10 seconds ... This isn’t going to happen tomorrow!), it would then take us four centuries to reach that planet. In short, we are far from reaching this stage. Not to mention that, in this immensity teeming with billions and billions of planets similar to ours, our disappearance would go unnoticed.
The current approach, consisting among other things of resuming lunar exploration, is both ambitious and reasonable. Ambitious, because it implements a programme that is at the limit of our means; reasonable, because it involves organising those means in a judicious manner around the notion of international cooperation. The return to the Moon is particularly exciting. Harmony between the teams on the Moon and on Earth will make it possible to manage and adapt the life of the operational personnel so as to overcome obstacles without too much damage. Starting with the monotony of the landscape.
Let me explain. A few years hence, we will have a station around the Moon and a lunar base, both permanently occupied. The station, named Gateway, will have a very eccentric orbit with a perigee (3) of 3,000 km and an apogee of 70,000 km. A full orbit will take 7 days. The view that the crew will behold will be very different to that from the International Space Station. The Earth will remain visible, but at a distance of more than 300,000 km. As for the Moon, it will always be flown over at practically the same spot. The only differences will be changes in the condition of the light from the sun. It is not impossible that the crews end up getting tired of it ...
M. M. — You raise a very good point there! The Earth was so beautiful while we were orbiting on the space station! It was very comforting and it was also a way to pass the time when we had free time; we could admire all our favourite places from afar. My crewmate Thomas Pesquet is a fantastic photographer. He and my colleague Shane Kimbrough helped me improve my photography while in orbit. But on a journey to Mars, what would you look at? The passengers will have nothing to contemplate; they will need something else to occupy those spare moments during the travel time.
J.-L. C. — High technology and artificial intelligence cannot compensate for the vagaries of human life. A mission to Mars will probably last close to three years. Nine months of outbound travel, twelve months in situ (on the surface of Mars or in orbit around Mars), nine months of return travel. In the event of a serious problem arising after the initial impetus needed to transfer from the Earth’s orbit to Mars’s orbit, there will be no way to alter the trajectory. The crew will see a few details of the region where their family lives, then continue their journey for three years without hope of an early return. They will be rapidly deprived of the ability to converse with their relatives the moment they reach the point from which it takes more than a few seconds to send a message – four or five times the Earth’s distance from the Moon. Conversations will be reduced to SMS format after two or three weeks – very early in view of the length of the mission. This phenomenon will be reversed on the return, two or three weeks before arrival back on Earth. So they would have to expect very difficult situations when faced, for example, with a serious family event.
To conclude this delicate chapter, a short description of the environment on board the vessel during its outward or its return journey: a feeling of total immobility, against the backdrop of an absolutely black sky lacking any reference other than a sun as dazzling as it is immobile. Not a single star, and Earth becoming a bright little dot after a few weeks, up until the reverse transformation from Mars a few weeks before arrival.
We are all, without exception, volunteers for this adventure. But we will need a lot of assistance to take on the contingencies of such a mission.
V. B. — Space policies represent a phenomenal cost borne by the current generation. Our fellow citizens are facing major challenges: climate change, energy and food security, pandemics, poverty, inequalities … Adopting a stance that is very understandably down-to-earth, some of them are arguing for the current crises to be resolved first. How should we respond to their questions?
J.-L. C. — There are various ways to tackle the issue. The first is to return to that instinctive impulse to explore that we were talking about at the beginning of the interview. This is an irrefutable argument. Citizens will continue to make the link between the amount allocated to space administration and the importance of this calling for humanity.
The second is to respond to groups of citizens according to their political affinities. Parameters that are essentially variable and even volatile, you will agree.
The third consists of justifying the investment through its direct benefits. Every year, NASA publishes a very detailed report on the terrestrial applications of the technologies developed for and in space. These range from heart pumps developed from space- shuttle fuel-pump technology, to crystals made in zero gravity that can improve the manufacture of certain medicines.
What is now emerging is a new opening that ‘New Space’s’ players are rushing into. These new buccaneers and other pirates dream of treasure and booty. Scarred by the lessons of history, we must do everything to ensure that the actions of those who are eager for conquest are fully controlled. Today we have mechanisms that our predecessors lacked, and which are easy to set up. Let me say it again: altitude is inspiring; it elevates the soul. But let’s have no illusions: on the surface of another planet, starting with the Moon, man will once again become conquering and belligerent. Even if he were endowed with it at the start, he will instantly lose all nobility.
In recent years, space has emerged as a new dimension to the mission concept of many countries’ air forces, starting with the United States. This decision initially seemed to me to run contrary to the principle of exploration and discovery, as opposed to that of conquest. Then, with some perspective, and in light of this aggressive ‘New Space’ trend, I think we have to accept that air policing has to be extended to space policing. Once again, humanity will have to pass through several stages of transcendence before it can go any further. This includes the radical transformation of a conquering and bestial being into a peaceful, intelligent one, the bringer of a happiness that can be passed on.
M. M. — I believe that the Americans are very proud of the space program and of everything that we have achieved together in space. It is important to them that the United States continues to be a leader in space exploration. I read somewhere that 80% of people in the United States believe that the International Space Station was a good investment for America. It is true that most people don’t follow day by day the details of the research we are carrying out (we are doing all kinds of different science for researchers all around the world, including things that are well outside our own area of expertise). People believe in what we are doing; they see the benefit of specific ‘spinoff’ technologies, but they also believe in research and the scientific approach. This is how we learn, this is how we create new technologies in the medical or aeronautical field, how we create all sorts of things that are useful to us in our everyday life.
V. B. — The United States and France are space powers that have been cooperating for sixty years. Jean-Loup, on September 12, 2022, during the 60th anniversary of President Kennedy’s speech at Rice University, you were the voice of international cooperation. How has this evolved since the 1960s?
J.-L. C. — I have been involved in space cooperation between France and the United States for almost thirty years. As of 1980, I was lucky enough to participate actively in international space cooperation – mainly between France, the USSR and then Russia, and the United States. In Houston in 1994, I met the director of NASA who invited me to set up the beginnings of space cooperation between Russia and the United States. To be frank, I had prompted this invitation a bit when I was director of French astronauts at the CNES because, among the consequences of this Russian-American decision, I had anticipated the serious risk of a weakening in French cooperation with these two countries. Thanks to this invitation, I managed to bring in three French astronauts on internships at NASA, each of them performing a space flight on the American shuttle.
M. M. — I was fortunate to be invited with my two Crew-2 crewmates to witness the moment when France signed the Artemis accords. In my career lifetime, I have seen first-hand the extent to which cooperation has played a crucial role in the field of space. Our international partnerships will continue to be important to our exploration efforts and will be key to our success in establishing a long-term presence on the Moon as well as in getting to Mars.
V. B. — Access to space is changing in nature. For a long time it was exclusively governmental; today, it is becoming privatized and commercialized. Is it democratizing? Where yesterday it was an exclusive domain, it has now become a new market. Both public and private players with access to space are increasing in number and diversifying. To what extent does this alter your profession as an astronaut? Megan, you who travelled on a private SpaceX spacecraft, what are your impressions?
M. M. — As astronauts, we are of course not responsible for those big agreements between agencies, between nations, or between agencies and private companies. We are associated with them as individuals, in person-to-person relationships. Everyone represents their own organization, but we work together towards a common goal.
I flew once on a Space Shuttle and once on board Crew Dragon, and the experiences were very different. That’s because the private company that developed Crew Dragon doesn’t only aim to serve NASA’s needs; it intends to expand access to space and allow non-professional astronauts to fly in its vehicles. So those vehicles are designed with that in mind.
V. B. — Jean-Loup, from an astronaut you have become an entrepreneur. What are your views on the future of public- private partnerships and their role in international cooperation?
J.-L. C. — We are experiencing a situation quite similar to that in aeronautics, which is not surprising, since the third dimension is not divided into an atmospheric part and a spatial part. First aeronautics benefited from the technologies developed during the two world wars, and then from the establishment of flight test centres, whose role was to open the gates to the sky for the benefit of future operators, both private and state-run. In the United States, President Obama reminded NASA that its essential role was to discover and explore new doorways, and to ensure that these were accessible to those who wanted to rush in. Now that we have knowledgeable and competent enthusiasts, NASA can enjoy its return on investment. In fact, as one example, the ‘non-high technology’ part of the Artemis project has been entrusted to Elon Musk’s SpaceX company, which is managing to offer non-essentially innovative systems at costs five to ten times lower than those NASA would have reported if it had developed them itself.
V. B. — Space is a field of conflict. Does it replicate earthly conflicts? Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, thereby sealing the return of war to the European continent. What has this new war on Earth changed for astronauts on mission in space?
M. M. — The Russian attack on Ukraine occurred after I had left the International Space Station. On board, we formed a close-knit community. We had to trust each other and work together. While we were in space together, our 7-person crew had to deal with several non-standard, critical situations, which we overcame thanks to our cohesion. While I was there, we did not discuss politics; instead, we talked about personal matters, like the love of our families and everything we were looking forward to finding as soon as we were back on Earth. It’s by sharing these human experiences and concentrating on what we have in common that we will succeed in overcoming our differences.
V. B. — Will there be an Artemis generation? That of children who will grow up with the spectacle of human beings living on the Moon, and the company of astronauts and other space navigators shuttling between the Earth and the Moon, as part of their everyday life? Children who will have fully integrated space into their mental universe? The conquest of space presents an important educational challenge. It should restore a taste for science and an appetite for knowledge among the young generations. Isn’t it time to put the sciences back at the centre of society, and scientific training at the centre of the humanities?
M. M. — I’ve always considered space exploration as a gateway into the sciences. Just about everyone you talk to can find something fascinating in it. As an astronaut, I have an educational role to play; I can encourage people to get interested in space, share with them the marvels of space exploration, make them aware of the scientific approach and of mathematics, and show them how all that can be useful to them in their everyday lives. It’s essential not just for those who plan to go to the Moon and to Mars, but for all those who are trying to solve the problems that we have here on Earth.
When I was looking back at the planet from space last year, I knew there was a pandemic raging, I could see giant hurricanes sweeping everything away as they passed, drought extending its ravages, and forest fires being unleashed just about everywhere. In order to tackle these disasters, whether it is climate change or a health crisis, we need science and engineering and technology and mathematics. The Artemis generation will need all of these tools to keep our planet safe. Space exploration is a way of getting young people interested in these challenges, to help them find that spark that will push them towards studying science or becoming an engineer. It’s tremendous. Not only will an Artemis generation that possesses self-confidence and scientific knowledge bolster our chances of one day setting foot on Mars, it will also help us take care of our own planet, right here.
V. B. — Will the astronauts of the Artemis generation, who will have extended stays in space, be different from those of today? Space medicine studies the effect of weightlessness on the human body and strives to preserve the physical health of astronauts. But who is interested in their soul, in their mental health? Prehistoric man was an artist. Will the multi-planetary species be one too?
J.-L. C. — Human progress proceeds in leaps, usually starting with a major discovery, followed by a more or less flat transition to the next leap. I will cite just three of these discoveries among so many others: fire, electricity, and the atom. A sort of harmonics within a fundamental frequency that is left to your imagination … During all these phases, artists have used their imagination, also surfing these waves in a kind of artistic tsunami. This produced the miracle of the 18th century, as much in literature as music, painting or sculpture. As someone who almost became a professional musician, for whom the organ remains the second passion of their life, I have lived through an eighty-year musical tsunami, a gigantic fugue whose musical expression strives to be as modern as its era of tremendous velocity. Thanks to my years at the conservatory, I learned to adapt. I admired the calm and sometimes the composure of the musicians. At every final exam, I shook much more than on my most hazardous test flights. Artistic discipline imposes a great humility on you, which I loved and admired in the greatest artists I encountered. Humility being an essential condition for successful deep-space exploration, I conclude that space and the artist go very well together. And I have been very pleased to see that there were so many artists in the world of the third dimension.
M. M. — All those who leave their home planet to discover a new place are a kind of diplomat for the Earth. They have to approach the experience with curiosity, respect, humility and open-mindedness. What is the role of art and culture in this encounter with the unknown? Generally, astronauts have a background in science, technology, engineering and in mathematics. Many come from the military, or from a technical or operational milieu. And yet you would probably be surprised at how many talented artists, particularly musicians, you find among them. There are lots of creative minds. I was thinking recently about the notion of access to space, of the fact that more and more people are going, whether they were selected to take part in a sponsor-financed trip, or were chosen by lottery. And I came to the conclusion that we should really send poets or artists. In my own case, I try to describe the experience of living in space, but I am an engineer, and the way I express myself doesn’t perhaps touch as many people. I try to capture the beauty of the Earth through photography, for example, or by describing my emotions in words. But there are people who are much better at that than I am, people who can communicate through art. When I project myself into the distant future, I imagine hotels on the Moon, and space stations where people can go on a vacation in low Earth orbit. And I also imagine artistic performances. Why not a dance performance in microgravity? We astronauts love playing with weightlessness, but what would a really talented choreographer do in that space? It’s a subject that fascinates me.
By way of conclusion…
“People have stars that are not the same. For some, who travel, the stars are their guides. For others, they are nothing but little lights. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman, they were gold. You, you will have stars like nobody else does …” Such is the promise of the Little Prince (4), interplanetary traveller, passing through Earth, fallen from a star, invented by a French poet aviator. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry wrote this eponymous tale in New York in 1943.
Space exploration is the adventure of mankind; but everyone – whether governments or individuals, public or private actors – engages in it with ‘stars that are not the same’. Scientific research, patriotic exploits, the conquest of markets, mineral extraction, domination of the battlefield, management of the Earth, commercialization of the low orbit … international space cooperation combines various passions and interests. Beyond the agreements among nations that govern this cooperation, there are individual voices – among them, those of the men and women who live the adventure of the stars in their body and with their entire soul. The international concert is the product of a plurality of languages, cultures and particularities. It is made of agreements, variations, nuances, and sometimes dissonances. It is made of rivalries and competition.
Let’s not completely ignore a few notable absentees from the adventures shared by Jean-Loup Chrétien and Megan McArthur, starting with China, which is resolutely asserting itself, albeit outside the framework of Western cooperation, as a new space power with a very ambitious programme. This includes the first landing on the dark side of the Moon, in 2019; the landing of the Tianwen-1 probe on Mars in 2021; the deployment of the Chinese space station in low Earth orbit in 2022; sending the Chinese international lunar research station into orbit around the Moon in 2024, and so on. Even if it struggles to rally partners, its space diplomacy is no less ambitious, spanning the Asia-Pacific Space Cooperation Organization in 2008 and the Belt and Road Aerospace Innovation Alliance in 2017. Space exploration is not immune to Sino-American rivalry. Facing China, the West led by the United States is playing a cooperative game that consists of strengthening the forums for multi-bilateral and multilateral dialogue. The Artemis agreements are relaunching the race for multilateralism in space.
Does Franco-American space cooperation include ‘New Space’? The sciences of the universe and of Earth observation have long been at the heart of the partnerships between the CNES and NASA. French space research, driven by the ‘Séminaire de Prospective Scientifique’ (Seminar of scientific perspectives), which meets every five years and mirrors its American counterparts, the Decadal Surveys (Planetary Science, Astrophysics, Earth Science), is a pillar of bilateral space cooperation. It must continue. The proof: the United States recently rejoined the Space for Climate Observatory, an initiative of the CNES. And last December, the launch of the Surface Water and Ocean Topography, or SWOT, satellite, dedicated to measuring the Earth’s surface waters and ocean dynamics, was the product of a joint NASA and CNES mission, in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the United States Geological Survey. The excellence of French scientific research is uncontestably an asset, but this will not be enough to keep France in the lead. This excellence should not dazzle us and make us miss what is critically at play in the current revolution. The Connect by CNES initiative aims to organise the French ‘New Space’ ecosystem. Health, environment, mobility, maintenance in orbit, construction in space, activities on the Moon or on the periphery … French ‘New Space’ must rapidly take a position within the American ‘New Space’. We must act quickly; the game is underway in four states primarily: California, Colorado, Florida and Texas.
In the era of Artemis, the space powers will be those that have bet on industry and innovation, and which will have resolutely engaged in the battle for regulation. France and Europe will continue to play in the big league and will retain their strategic autonomy on the condition that they secure their own access to space with a European vehicle operated from a European territory. Will we Europeans be able to meet this challenge with the help of the next generation of Ariane 6 and Vega-C rockets, and the reusable Space Rider shuttle? France must take its chances in the global game of Go for access to space: will it be the first to create an ambassador for space?
No space power without soft power. Art sublimates strategic battles. France has experienced this since the time of King Francis I and the Renaissance. Will Franco-American space cooperation extend to the artistic field?
‘Dream Big’ is one of the best slogans in Texas, and I came to Houston with a big dream: to sow the seeds for the first artists’ residency in space – an Artemis Art Space Residency! Space, the Moon and the stars have always been objects of inspiration for humanity, but let’s go a step further and approach one of these points of transcendence that Jean-Loup Chrétien talks about and imagine, along with Megan McArthur, an astronaut artist whose mission would be to create in space. Aristotle distinguished between the mechanical arts, like theatre, and the liberal arts, like music. Will Aristotelian poetics help us think about the renewal of art and the creative process in space?
‘The Moon is a novel,’ writes the astrophysicist and author Fatoumata Kébé (5). Why not one day have a novel not about the Moon, but written on the Moon? Since we are talking about works of fiction and non-fiction, there would be two new categories: works made on Earth (Earth Art Work) and works made in space (Space Art Work); Earth-based artists and space artists.
And what if we were to invent a ‘Villa Artemis’ some four centuries after the Villa Medici?
V. B.
(1) ‘Making Humans a Multi-Planetary Species’, New Space, 5 June 2017.
(2) An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the solar system.
(3) The perigee of an Earth satellite is the point in its orbit that is closest to the centre of the Earth. The point furthest away is its apogee.
(4) Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943.
(5) Fatoumata Kébé, La Lune est un roman, Slatkine et cie, 2019.