By Andy Weir

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Armstrong Bubble sits in the middle, surrounded by Aldrin, Conrad, Bean, and Shepard. The bubbles each connect to their neighbors via tunnels. I remember making a model of Artemis as an assignment in elementary school. Pretty simple: just some balls and sticks. It took ten minutes.

It’s pricey to get here and expensive as hell to live here. But a city can’t just be rich tourists and eccentric billionaires. It needs working-class people too. You don’t expect J. Worthalot Richbastard III to clean his own toilet, do you?

(Weir 2017, 5)

Earth’s air is 20 percent oxygen. The rest is stuff human bodies don’t need like nitrogen and argon. So Artemis’s air is pure oxygen at 20 percent Earth’s air pressure. That gives us the right amount of oxygen while minimizing pressure on the hulls. It’s not a new concept – it goes back to the Apollo days. Thing is, the lower the pressure, the lower the boiling point of water. Water boils at 61 degrees Celsius here, so that’s as hot as tea or coffee can be. Apparently it’s disgustingly cold to people who aren’t used to it.

(Weir 2017, 16-17)

Fidelis Ngugi is, simply put, the reason Artemis exists. When she was Kenya’s minister of finance, she created the country’s entire space industry from scratch. Kenya had one  – and only one – natural resource to offer space companies: the equator. Spacecraft launched from the equator could take full advantage of Earth’s rotation to save fuel. But Ngugi realized they could offer something more: policy. Western nations drowned commercial space companies in red tape. Ngugi said, “Fuck that. How about we don’t?”

(Weir 2017, 37)

I point to the new feature. “What the hell is that?” 

Dad looked over to it. “It’s an idea I came up with a while ago.”

“What’s it for?”

“Work it out.”

Ugh! If I had a slug for every time he’d said that in my life … Never a straight answer – everything had to be a … learning experience. 

(Weir 2017, 62)

The moon always points the same face toward Earth. So, even though we’re in orbit, from our point of view, Earth doesn’t move. Well, technically, it wobbles a bit because of lunar libration, but don’t worry your pretty little head about that. Point is: Earth is fixed in the sky. It rotates in place and goes through phases, but it doesn’t move.

The ramp pointed at Earth so Dad could face Mecca while praying. Most Muslims here just faced west – that’s what Dad had done all my life. 

(Weir 2017, 63)

Newcomers tend to be paranoid about the whole “deadly vacuum outside” thing. It’s irrational – Artemis’s hull is extremely safe – but fear isn’t logical. In practice, personal air shelters quickly become closets. 

(Weir 2017, 65-66)

Nothing like a language barrier to make people leave you alone. 

(Weir 2017, 78)

“Every Apollo mission planted an American flag,” Gunter said. “So where is it? Well, when the Ascent Stage lifted off, the exhaust knocked the poor flag over. Then, the dust that had been kicked up covered it. If you look closely on the ground, just to the left of the Eagle, you can see a small patch of white. That’s the only bit of the flag still visible.”

The crowd murmured as people pointed out the white bit to one another.

“For later missions, they figured out to put the flags farther away.”

A small chuckle came from the crowd.

“Interesting side note: All the other flags have been exposed to unfiltered sunlight during lunar days for over a hundred years. They’ve been bleached completely white now. But Tranquility Base’s flag is under a thin layer of regolith. So it probably still looks like it did back in 1969. Of course, no one is allowed to enter or modify the landing site to take a look.”

(Weir 2017, 80)

“Shit! Damn! Crap! Ass! Son of a bitch!” It’s important to vary your profanities. If you use the same one too often it loses strength. 

(Weir 2017, 122)

Building a civilization is ugly … But the alternative is no civilization at all.

(Weir 2017, 199)

I left without further comment. I didn’t want to spend any more time inside the mind of an economist. It was dark and disturbing.

(Weir 2017, 301)

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References

Weir, Andy. 2017. Artemis: A Novel. N.p.: Random House Publishing Group.

ISBN 978-0-553-44812-2