Joseph Dooley Fiction: June 2020

Challenge accepted

When Apollo 11 landed on the surface of the moon in 1969, the crew left behind Neil Armstrong’s iconic footprint, and also 96 bags of human waste. But no more. The Moon deserves better. To this end, NASA last week launched the “Lunar Loo Challenge,” imploring the citizens of Earth to design a toilet for use in its Artemis Program, whose lunar lander is scheduled to send the first woman and the next man to the Moon by 2024. For the winners, there is a $35,000 prize pool that will be split between the three teams with the best designs, as decided by a panel of NASA engineers. The challenge also includes a junior competition where toilet engineers under the age of 18 can submit their designs.

I may be twice the age of the demographic this competition is geared towards, but, as the author of a book about a commercial expedition to colonize the Moon, I've given this some thought.

Let me begin by saying that 96 bags is an awful lot of human waste for two men to produce in barely a day. Such massive waste cannot be tolerated in future lunar operations if sustainability is the goal. Feces should be used to compost the lunar soil, and potable water should be distilled from urine.

The most dangerous part of space is the lack of atmosphere. It's the underlying threat that poses near-instantaneous death to astronauts. It's also an undervalued resource. When you expose a pressurized environment to vacuum, you turn an incremental drop in air pressure into kinetic energy. This energy can transport human waste to where it needs to be, much like flowing water carries human waste through a sewer.

If I were 17, my toilet design would take advantage of vacuum. It would be modeled after a flush toilet, use gravity to trap human waste, and have two settings: dry flush and water-assisted. The lid would be sealed after use, and the air trapped inside the bowl would be sucked, along with the waste, into another chamber. Filters would catch the waste, allowing water to pass through to be distilled. The air, separated by gravity from the water, would go to compost with the waste.

There's no reason to overthink this. Technically complex solutions to mundane problems like how to use the john collectively present a significant barrier to people's enthusiasm for space exploration. People will suffer much for a chance to thrive. They'll balk if the reward for years of toil is a joyless, artificial life experience totally disconnected from what they left behind on Earth.

Ultimately life on the Moon or in an off-world colony must be dynamic and full of spirit and zest. The technical architecture of life in pressurized habitats should reflect that, for the habitants' sake, on whom the colony depends for self-preservation and self-perpetuation. While regimen is a key operational factor, it must not come at life's expense.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. Be sure to browse the fine independent authors and creators in the blog roll. You'll find an extended preview of my Moon colonization book, Tendrils to the Moon, here.

An unlikely hero

In mad times, unlikely heroes emerge.

In a joint statement, Fisher, Davies and Jónsdóttir said that following Rowling’s recent intervention on transgender rights, they had asked the agency “to reaffirm their commitment to transgender rights and equality”. However, following private talks, they said: “We felt that they were unable to commit to any action that we thought was appropriate and meaningful.”
As a result, the writers felt unable to continue to be represented by the agency, adding: “Freedom of speech can only be upheld if the structural inequalities that hinder equal opportunities for underrepresented groups are challenged and changed.”
In its response, the Blair Partnership said it took pride in the diversity of views represented by their authors but it could not compromise on the “fundamental freedom” of allowing authors the right to express their thoughts and beliefs.
A spokeswoman said it would always champion diverse voices and believe in freedom of speech for all but it was not willing to have staff “re-educated” to meet the demands of a small group of clients.

So the four writers, one of whom remained anonymous, don't see the contradiction between compelling speech in support of a cause and freedom of speech? This pretzel logic is what comes of worldly ideologies that assert themselves as absolutes. They ultimately trump others' rights, including the right to speak against it, which is what Rowling did, effectively.

I must register my astonishment that a literary agency would characterize the writers' demands as Communist re-education. That kind of rhetoric is typically reserved for use by Right-wingers against mandated political correctness.

At any rate, good on Rowling and the Blair Partnership for standing up for what they believe in and protecting their employees. Some may bemoan the spat going public, the parting of ways, and the ripping up of contracts, but it's the optimal outcome in a liberal society, which is what this is supposed to be. This way, no one's conscience is violated and everyone walks away of his own free will.

Rowling may have "F-U" money a hundred times over, but we shouldn't discount a celebrity's attachment to adoration. That adoration, more or less constant for over 20 years, has turned to bullying since she spoke out. She's responded with bravery and class.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like hard sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.

Tradpub vs libraries part 4

For context, here are parts 1, 2, and 3.

A practical tidbit from Brian Niemeier's Don't Give Money to People Who Hate You is to self-quarantine from the rat race of fandom, nostalgia, and corporate-owned IPs. You have other options. Partake of independently produced art from passionate, unaffiliated creators who don't have an axe to grind. Partake also of the unadulturated classics of the past, much of which are available in the public domain at sites like the Internet Archive.

The entertainment industry rightly sees the public domain as a threat to its existence, which is why you've seen the Internet Archive in the news so much the last few months. It's under attack.

MacMillan, currently being shopped to buyers by the ailing ViacomCBS, may have backed off its threats against the Internet Archive's emergency library in March, but that didn't stop Hachette, Harper Collins, Penguin/Random House, and Wiley from suing to get it shut down. They scored a small victory. The emergency library was set to expire at the end of June, but under pressure from the publishers the Internet Archive shut it down 2 weeks early.

But the real ramifications of the publishers' lawsuit are pending.

The complaint attacks the concept of any library owning and lending digital books, challenging the very idea of what a library is in the digital world. This lawsuit stands in contrast to some academic publishers who initially expressed concerns about the NEL, but ultimately decided to work with us to provide access to people cut off from their physical schools and libraries. We hope that similar cooperation is possible here, and the publishers call off their costly assault.

The first 6 months of 2020 have produced two Black Swan events that exposed the expendability of modern entertainment and the entertainment industry's antagonistic sociocultural alignment. Expect their attacks on alternative media to increase as they stare down the barrel of consecutive years of negative growth.

I'll say it again, you have options. Visit the sites of the writers in the blog roll. Browse indie creators over at IndieGen.xyz. If you like hard sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.

Insurgents at Hachette

JK Rowling as is close to a sure thing in publishing as it gets. The revenue her books generate for tradpub feeds hundreds of people across the entertainment industry. But that hasn't stopped woke insurgents at Hachette, feeling their oats after getting Woody Allen's autobiography cancelled, to turn their sights on her.

Yesterday morning at publishing house Hachette, several of those involved in Miss Rowling’s new children’s book, The Ickabog, are said to have staged their own rebellion during a heated meeting. One source said: ‘Staff in the children’s department at Hachette announced they were no longer prepared to work on the book.
‘They said they were opposed to her comments and wanted to show support for the trans lobby. These staff are all very “woke”, mainly in their twenties and early thirties, and apparently it is an issue they feel very strongly about.’

It also really burns your stomach lining when someone you thought for sure was on your side turns out to not be.

Say what you want about Rowling ret-conning Albus Dumbledore into some sort of gay icon. Her comments on the transgender movement's bending of reality to conform to its vision were the sanest thing I've heard her say in years.

Hachette issued a statement that, while hypocritical, is nonetheless refreshing in today's political climate:

Freedom of speech is the cornerstone of publishing. We fundamentally believe that everyone has the right to express their own thoughts and beliefs. That’s why we never comment on our authors’ personal views and we respect our employees’ right to hold a different view.

At least someone's saying it.

Who knows what motivated Hachette to stand up for Rowling. My guess is she's simply too important to their bottom line to let go. It's a wonder that Rowling, an institution in her own right, would put up with this nonsense. She doesn't need Hachette to sell millions of books. Her name finishes the sale.

For the insurgents at Hachette, this is an opportunity for reflection. How many, when put to it, would pass an ideological purity test? How many have never compromised with society? How many have never uttered a word of doubt about a beloved cause? Knowing how few in number such people are, they cannot maintain the fiction of their ascendancy.

Military historian Victor Davis Hanson writes:

Inevitably cultural revolutions die out when they turn cannibalistic. Once the Red Guard started killing party hacks too close to Mao, it began to wane.
Once cultural revolutions turn anarchic and eat their own, they lose support. When quiet sympathizers conclude that they too may targeted, to survive they turn on their former icons.

Exclusivity in chess

I love Antonio Radic's breakdowns of professional chess games, and I don't even play chess. He devotes most of this 14-minute video to posing a question about the efficacy of a chess tournament hosted on Twitch to promote chess.

It comes as no surprise Radic himself and the majority of YouTube commenters think the PogChamps chess tournament is a good thing because they think anything to promote chess is a good thing. Chess brings them joy and they think it will bring joy to others. There's a sense of validation in seeing your pastime increase in popularity.

The man who thinks PogChamps is bad for chess seems to take his minority stance as a given and goes full curmudgeon. In the process, he gives short shrift to a straightforward, reasonable argument. For the crux of the matter is this: Is outreach to grow membership in your club a worthy endeavor?

If you answer in the affirmative, you are assuming:

There are people who have not heard of chess who would love it.
"Chess," or the chess community, will be enriched by letting in more people who were not willing come on their own.

Both these assumptions are specious, and as a matter of principle they should be rejected. There are very few people in the world who have not seen a game of chess. Going out and finding them is a quixotic endeavor. As for the second point, history shows that absorbing and catering to newbs weakens a community's distinct culture and cohesion. Your ranks will swell, but cultural bonds will weaken.

Someone who is willing to join a community on the community's terms, to learn, to be silent and listen, that is the kind of person chess—or any club—should want. They're the kind of people who will form the next generation of leaders. But you don't find them with outreach programs. You find them by steadfastly being who you are.

Counterintuitively, the best way to grow your club, as it is, is to embrace it as it is, with its present makeup. It's okay if that turns some people away. Clubs wouldn't be clubs if they weren't inherently exclusive.

Disarm and disengage

I finally got around to reading Brian Niemaier's Don't Give Money to People Who Hate You. Congratulations are due to Brian, who couldn't have timed this book's release any better.

Watching every IP I grew up with be systematically subverted and weaponized against me is a unique right of passage for young men in my age bracket. The biggest and best example is Star Wars, which Brian cites often. The MCU and Disney's other properties also come in for their fair share of criticism. There are so many more examples, it's inevitable a book addressing such an encompassing issue would feel incomplete.

This problem goes well beyond corporate-owned IPs. It's a good bet that most big-time authors, actors, and athletes you follow stand opposed to the values you embody in your life, whether those values be morality, minimally invasive government, the right to own guns, etc. Managers of most billion-dollar companies subscribe to the post-war liberal consensus. Among this group, guilt for Western Civilization runs through a positive feedback loop, spiraling towards quasi-religious displays of fealty to the latest fad.

Brian, ever the rhetorician, calls it the Death Cult. Looking at its fruits in the secular world, I can't argue with that term.

We have never needed the core message of this book more than now. If the last 2 weeks haven't put you on a war footing, I don't know what will. The culture war is heating up, and it will take strong faith and discipline to protect yourself and your loved ones from becoming a victim of it.

As the book's title says, don't give money to people who hate you. But don't let your actions stop there. The world's venom only has as much power over you as you give it time and attention. Disarm it and disengage. Trade with people who don't have an axe to grind. Confront the enemy where he can be beaten, not on social media, but right in front of you. And don't forget your best tool in defense of the truth, the one true God and His Son Jesus Christ.

A second space station?

That's what the lunar gateway looks like, if it's ever completed.

I wrote last week about the Artemis program, which, barring any setbacks, will put men on the Moon for the first time since 1972. Part of the original plan was to launch a space station in orbit around the Moon to support Artemis 3, the target mission for a manned lunar landing.

Last year that plan was scrapped. But the space station, or gateway, is still in the works to support later Moon missions. NASA just awarded the contract for the habitable part of the gateway to Northrup Grumman.

While the space geek in me gets heart palpitations over the prospect of space colonization, the realist in me taps the breaks. The Moon is a 3 days' ride from Earth. Given the extent of contingency planning on these missions, there's little reason to support lunar surface operations from lunar orbit. Support can more easily be run from the International Space Station or even from Earth directly.

The gateway only makes economic sense if lunar operations become so commonplace that vehicles come and go from the surface every day. Given the cost and time interval of each Artemis mission, that will not be the case.

At the end of the day, to justify the time and resource investment in a lunar gateway, NASA has to commit to a well-stocked, continuously manned main operating base in lunar orbit, in support of several forward operating sites on the Moon. Its main function would be physical maintenence and replenishment of lunar landing vehicles. I'm not sure the drive for such an involved posture is there, not with Mars beckoning.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. Speaking of the Moon, I have written a hard science fiction book about the first commercial expedition to colonize the Moon. You can find an extended preview for it here.

A world to explore: Dune

(Part 3 of a series on Dune. Read part 1 and part 2.)

Since Dune is commonly hailed as the best of its genre, it's worth going back and looking at what makes it so effective at connecting with readers. This post covers House Atreides arriving on Arrakis to Dr. Yueh's betrayal. This part of the book is mostly confined to a mansion and a command post next to a landing field, but the intensity of the threat level is constantly cranked up to 10. There's a memorable scene over the desert, a worm attack on a spice crawler. It's an appetizer for the setting immersion to come.

A world to explore. Frank Herbert does not give sweeping setting descriptions of Arrakis. He describes just enough to give you a sense of the geography, and he repeats certain details so you'll remember them (e.g., the blue within blue of the Fremen's eyes). Usually a detail is noted to drive home an observation, contradiction, or quick deduction. The richest setting description comes when Duke Leto stops to think on a balcony.

To the east, the night grew a faggot of luminous gray, then seashell opalescence that dimmed the stars. There came the long, bell-tolling movement of dawn striking across a broken horizon.
It's poetic and brief, and it leaves a lot of gaps for your imagination to fill. I have more thoughts on that here.

Brisk prose. One of the first things I noticed in Herbert's writing style when I first read Dune is he often doesn't connect compound predicates with a conjunction. It's a small thing, but it goes a long way in setting a brisk pace and highlighting the characters' sharpened senses. I don't have time to make a direct comparison to the prose before they arrive on Arrakis and after, but I wouldn't be surprised if this prose style was more pronounced afterwards, to complete the setting shift.

Honorable Leto. In two key scenes, at a briefing of Duke Leto's lieutenants, and on a tour of a spice mining operation in the desert, Leto shows his leadership, magnanimity, even temper, and resourcefulness. The way he rushes in at great risk to himself to save spice miners from a worm is not just thrilling. It amplifies the tragedy of his downfall. He sets the leadership example for Paul, who bears the weight of the future of the House on his shoulders. One thing the Reverend Mother drilled Paul on after he passed the gom jabbar test was what it is to rule. He said to rule is to command, an insufficient if not incorrect answer. She says:

Grave this on your memory, lad: A world is supported by four things... the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these are as nothing without a ruler who knows the art of ruling.

Red herrings. Here's where I bring Dune in for some criticism. There are scenes late in the opening act that show Lady Jessica's developing suspicions of a coup attempt. She's tipped off by a drunk Duncan Idaho, which seems out of character for a trusted lieutenant of the Duke's. Then she gives Thufir Hawat a stern talking-to and basically boasts of her Bene Gesserit skills. Then there's a lengthy dinner scene with the crème de la crème of Arrakeen high society. Since we know it's Yueh, all this intrigue feels like wheel spinning, which is especially frustrating as the characters are supposed to be smart.

Yueh's motive revisited. This is Dune's biggest flaw. Yueh suspects the Harkonnens killed his wife, and he wants to know for sure. He also wants to kill the Baron. Step outside the narrative and look at Yueh's actions. They do not match his motive. Why betray House Atreides, causing the death of hundreds if not thousands of your allies, to get back at the Baron? Why not confide in the Duke that you must find out what happened to your wife? Yueh has been in Leto's employment for 6 years. It's inconceivable that Yueh would feel so isolated in the loss of his wife that virtually no one in House Atreides would help him. If you think I'm missing something or you have a reasonable explanation for this, I want to hear it.

"The tooth!" So the mechanism of Yueh's assassination attempt on Baron Harkonnen is a toxic gas pill disguised as a tooth hidden in Duke Leto's mouth. You could be detained Hannibal Lekter-style and still clear a room with a chomp of your jaw. The most memorable aspect of this is the refrain Yueh employs to help the drugged Leto to remember: "The tooth!" Associating an obscure concept with something easy to recall is part of writing craft. I don't know why, but it makes me chuckle.

War out of focus. Yueh's betrayal is only part of the Baron's plot, as explained in just the second chapter. With the head of House Atreides cut off, the fighting men lack the leadership to fight off the invasion. A whole battle takes place, but it's all in the background. Herbert wasn't interested in showing the space cruisers landing, the fall of the mansion, or the fighting in the caves on the cliffs. He keeps the narrative focused on the characters. All you need to know is that House Atreides fights and loses.

Another book that did this is One Corpse Too Many by Ellis Peters. Early in the book there's a massive battle, but she skips it completely and shows just the aftermath. Why? Because the story isn't about war or fighting. It's about a mystery of a man's death. Likewise, Herbert did not set out to write a war novel. He'll do this again where he simply skims over the battle to show the confrontation between Paul and the Emperor. Some readers may miss the battle scenes, but the book is helped by maintaining focus.

Paul's great leap. It's all but confirmed at the end of the first act that Paul is the Kwisatz Haderach. This development occurs almost entirely in his head. He sees years into the future, and it looks dark and terrible. The YouTube channel Quinn's ideas has an excellent video on Paul's foresight if you don't mind sequel spoilers.

It's unclear what sparks this leap in Paul. It could be the small amount of spice he's ingested so far on Arrakis. I'm more inclined to think it came about by necessity after his father died. The scene highlights the difficulty of adapting Dune to film. How do you show in a visual medium a character arc that takes place mostly between the main character's ears? It'll be interesting to see what Denis Villeneuve comes up with.

Delete your account

Facebook burst on the scene my freshman year in college. It was how I stayed connected with my college friends, and later my high school friends, and yet later everyone else, including my favorite musicians. Everyone I know and have known is on Facebook.

It was nice to see people who I hadn't seen in years getting married, having kids, going on vacation, and starting new jobs. Somewhere along the way Facebook changed. It's now a place of, in David V Stewart's words, "embarrassing ugliness;" where people emote about what's on TV, usually the news. It's especially bad in election years.

I don't mind this type of content on Twitter because I don't interact in person with anyone I know on Twitter. My community is formed around sociocultural kinship and common creative goals. (As well as anyone who finds and likes my writing.) My interactions on Facebook ironically feel less real because I know my acquaintances wouldn't say half this stuff in real life.

For years I had been toying with the idea of deleting Facebook. The virtue signaling and agenda pushing in the wake of these criminal riots were my breaking point. It pains me to see people of my faith whose company I enjoy being taken hostage by racial propoganda. But more importantly I can't let my friends' foolish social media posts be the first thing I think about when I see them.

My participation in Facebook was preventing me from loving my Christian brothers as I should, so I deleted it. If anything has that effect on you, do not hesitate to cut it out of your life. The evil one is using it as a foothold to take charge of your soul.

The next first step

Congratulations to the Astronauts that left Earth today. Good choice
— Andy Milonakis (@andymilonakis) May 30, 2020

While rioters and their enablers were wreaking havoc over the weekend, there was one bright spot: NASA put two astronauts in space, something it hadn't done since retiring the Space Shuttle in 2011.

A cynic would say we attained this capability in 1965 with the Gemini program, so we haven't progressed in 55 years. And he wouldn't be wrong. But the '60s featured NASA at its peak: lean, aggressive, risk-taking, and committed. Since then it has gone the way of most organizations and succumbed to bureaucratic laziness. Now it is gearing up for another moonshot. It's a hopeful reversal. (Ironically, the embarrassment of American astronauts having to hitch a ride to space on Russian Soyuz spacecraft may have been what kickstarted the present drive.)

So the launch of the Crew Dragon Demo-2 on Saturday was a great victory for SpaceX, whose innovations in rocket technology and manned space capsules have, for a time, taken attention off NASA's decades of idle talk about returning to the Moon or going to Mars. Now that this milestone has been reached, all eyes will turn to the Artemis program, whose goal is to reach the Moon in 2024.

However, this is not your grandpa's moonshot. The Artemis program is strikingly different from the Apollo program of the '60s and '70s. Here are the biggest differences:

Fewer test flights: The Apollo program had a rapid testing schedule with a mission every couple of months before NASA finally went for it on Apollo 11. By contrast, the Artemis program has only two scheduled test flights over the next 3 years. If all goes well, Artemis 3 will be the one to land on the Moon. There are no planned missions after that. If there's a setback or, God forbid, an accident, I think Artemis 3 could be pushed back or canceled. The lack of testing is concerning because testing is how you learn to avoid and anticipate mistakes and malfunctioning equipment. The abbreviated testing schedule means the pressure will be on to execute flawlessly.
Wrinkles in mission execution: The Apollo Moon missions were scattered across the near side, but Artemis 3 will land near the south pole. Targeting this area of the Moon calls for an unconventional orbit around the Moon that's perpendicular to the Moon's orbit around Earth. This has never been tried with people before. Waiting for the astronauts on the surface will be their equipment, launched on separate rockets, presumably weeks or months in advance.
Longer missions, larger crew: The plan is for Artemis 3 to carry four astronauts. Two will stay in lunar orbit while the others, a man and a woman, go down to the lunar surface. They'll spend up to a week on the surface, double the 3 days the Apollo 17 astronauts spent there. It'll be interesting to see how the astronauts' equipment, especially on the Moon, holds up over that length of time. Moon dust is like pulverized glass. It's super-fine, sticky, and corrosive. You definitely don't want to breathe it in.
Moon base or no? The intent right now is to establish some sort of consistent, if not permanent, human presence either in lunar orbit or on the surface. That the missions after Artemis 3 aren't greenlit yet suggests they're waiting to see how the test flights go. Yet putting off these decisions places an undue burden on Artemis 2 and 3, the manned missions. Groundwork for an orbital "gateway" or base could and should be started then. Do we really want a base in the out-of-the-way south pole? Ditto a gateway, whose unconventional orbit over the poles would be cumbersome to change once it's assembled. It's conceivable neither of those things will happen and the focus will shift to land men on Mars by 2030. Budget limitations foreclose an all-of-the-above approach. NASA will have to choose.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. Apropos of exploring the Moon, I have written a hard science fiction book about the first commercial expedition to colonize the Moon. It's called Tendrils to the Moon. You can find an extended preview for it here.

UPDATE: I was wrong about the gateway's orbital limitations. According to this promotional video produced by NASA, it is possible to make changes to the gateway's orbit at apogee to position it virtually anywhere over the lunar surface.