The Citadel| Putting the 'Art' in Artemis
Putting the 'Art' in Artemis
Return to the Heavens
Summary
"Return to the Heavens" represents humanity reaching towards the skies and continuing our longing to explore. The shape of the human explorer shown is comprised of the three Artemis missions that will culminate in our landing on the Moon again. The heart of this explorer is the Earth; ever present in our ambitions and consideration. Our pathway back to the Moon and beyond is choreographed through the Artemis mission and is represented here by the intricate orbital trajectory the Orion spacecraft must undertake to get our astronauts back to its surface. We are ever reaching and ever pushing the bounds of ours and our technologies capabilities in order to fulfill our mission to explore.
How I Addressed This Challenge
This project answers the Putting the "Art" in Artemis challenge. Its combination of the orbital trajectories of the three Artemis missions that culminate with humanity returning to the moon. The orbital paths show the literal paths that the Artemis missions will take to return us to the moon and their composition together shows represents us as a people reaching to the sky and continuing a tradition of discovery and exploration and to wonder about what lies ahead. This is an original work inspired by the Artemis orbital trajectories. The explorer represented by the composition of these paths illustrates humanity reaching to the Heavens and always looking to discover more.
How I Developed This Project
I first found the orbital trajectories for the three Artemis missions that ultimately land mankind back onto the moon through a Google search. On their own, I think spacecraft trajectories are very elegant and I was inspired to use them for this challenge. After choosing these images, I then combined them and oriented them in the final pose in PowerPoint. Once I had the image orientation decided on, I saved each individual image and then imported them into a Computer Aided Drafting software called Fusion 360. I made each image a 'canvas' in Fusion 360 and then traced the orbital trajectories. Once completed, I turned the tracings into toolpaths to use on my home-built CNC machine. I used a 1 mm diameter bit to trace all of the lines on a piece of 0.75" thick plywood and then sanded and painted the piece to achieve the final result. The overall piece is of 11.75"x16"x0.75" sanded plywood and the painting was done with acrylics.
How I Used Space Agency Data in This Project
The space agency data that was used in the creation of this work was from the published orbital trajectory graphics for the three Artemis missions. The graphic for the Artemis I mission was published through the European Space Agency by K Oldenburg; the graphics for the Artemis II and III missions were presented to the NASA Advisory Council's Human Exploration and Operations Committee. The three graphics were combined to form the torso, head, and arms which represent humanity reaching to the sky.
Project Demo
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1foIzDjKlOrf_IpzlUYP5TI1zeJBiItLS01mouKFXY4w/edit?usp=sharing
Note: the "Demonstrate Your Solution" submission text lists up to 7 PowerPoint slides. I interpreted that as 7 slides are acceptable and so that is what I've submitted. The challenge overview webpage lists that teams can submit presentations with 6 slides... I believe I well demonstrated my design with 7 slides and hope this complies with the requirement.
Data & Resources
1: Artemis I Mission Trajectory
Artemis I – formerly Orion/Em-1 (Exploration Mission-1), Figure 33, by K Oldenburg
https://directory.eoportal.org/web/eoportal/satellite-missions/content/-/article/artemis-i
2: Artemis II Mission Trajectory and Artemis II Mission Trajectory
NASA Advisory Council - NASA Human Exploration and Operations Overview presentation