Debbie says:

The incomparable N.K. Jemisin has a book of short stories called How Long ’til Black Future Month? (Read it; it’s by Jemisin, so I don’t need to say anything else about it.) So far, no one has written How Long ’til Women’s Future Month, but the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is making some surprising and exciting strides toward (U.S.) women in space.  Here is composer/violinist Lindsey Stirling celebrating the Artemis program (program information and statistics embedded in the video).

I didn’t know that an active effort to recruit, train, and deploy women astronauts was happening at all, let alone in such a substantial and (it would seem) righteous way. I recently read Mary Robinette Kowal‘s The Calculating Stars, first of a two-book series providing a completely different alternate-history take on getting women into space, which may be part of why I am so drawn to this story. Of course, several women went into space during the last active U.S. (and U.S.S.R.) space programs, but no woman has set foot on the moon.

We all need some forward-looking and cheerful topics, and I have to say that watching Stirling dance to her own music, and reading the Artemis Project statistics, warms my heart. I hope it warms yours.

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