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Tina Glasneck's "The Hell Chronicles" series is being included in the "Writers on the Moon" project, which will launch a micro SD card containing the works of 125 fiction authors to the moon. (Image courtesy Tina Glasneck)
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Richmond-based author Tina Glasneck (Photo courtesy Tina Glasneck)
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In addition to a micro SD card and a duplicate card containing the works of 125 authors, "Writers on the Moon" is also launching to the moon a metal medallion and tiny paper book detailing the project description via NASA's Peregrine Mission One. The dime represents scale. (Photo courtesy "Writers on the Moon")
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Astrobotic's Peregrine lunar lander will touchdown at Lacus Mortis on the moon, where the works of 125 authors will take up permanent residency as part of the "Writers on the Moon" project. (Photo courtesy "Writers on the Moon")
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The location of Lacus Mortis on the face of the moon relative to the Apollo mission landing sites (Photo courtesy "Writers on the Moon")
Sounds like science fiction, sending 125 authors’ works and several stowaways through a project of lunar logistics firm Astrobotic. This is a program called Peregrine Mission One, which is part of a NASA initiative for working through the challenges of sending regularly scheduled payloads to the moon for the support of human residents. Peregrine is slotted to blast off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on Thursday, May 4.
And, so, naturally there’s a Richmond connection.
Because the city is home to novelist Tina Glasneck, whose tales embrace vampires, dragons and the Nordic mythic pantheon, among other subjects. And she, well that is, some of her stories, are on a SanDisk Extreme micro SD card riding in Peregrine for a touch down on the Lacus Mortis which translates as “Lake of Death.” It appears as a hexagonal dark patch in the northeastern region of the moon’s face, north of where Apollo 17 landed.
Writer Susan Kaye Quinn initiated the project, dubbed “Writers on the Moon,” during the uncertain times of 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The concept is to create a lunar time capsule of sorts comprised of popular fiction, music and art of our time for future scientists and posterity.
Glasneck says, “I would’ve loved to have made it down to Florida to watch the liftoff. I’m super excited.” The invitation to join the “ragtag fleet of stories” came by lottery. She’s No. 54 on the official manifest.
“The world was going through the fantastical — or the apocalyptic — but in real time,” Glasneck reflects. “This was to give us hope for a brighter future, for looking forward with a sense of hope, that we shot for the moon.” Along for the ride with the authors and their work are images and audio.
She sent a catalog of books, her “Order of the Dragon” series and “The Hell Chronicles.” The latter concerns the Nordic gods coming down to contemporary Richmond to stave off Ragnarok.
Glasneck moved with her family from Ohio when in the fourth grade and is a class of 1996 graduate from Open High School. The noninstitutional institution recently held a reunion. “It was like going home again,” she recalls. “Seeing all those glorious faces, when you remember them as age 16, the past and present converged at one time.”
While at Open she received encouragement for her writing from English teacher Kathy Bruckner and another, Rebecca Jones, who introduced her to the world literary devices and Shakespeare. “Our classroom was the city,” she says of her Open experience. “That way, you learn about yourself but also the world, and discover things you might not otherwise.”
The Nordic myths intrigued her during a time living in Germany and near the Brothers Grimm Highway. She delved into the original fairy tales and their meanings and visited some of their locations. There is a tale of a priest burning down Thor’s tree. “And that was the spark that sent me into these stories,” she says. That, and her own education in theology.
But back to the moon and the digital data card. Assuming the website or its complementary archival effort last, how do we know if any future lunar residents will be able to access the stories? Glasneck explains, “Well, people still have eight-tracks and old record players,” and who knows what future technology will be able to extract from predecessors? “It’s something where I can tell my children and grandchildren, looking up there and saying, ‘My stories are on the moon.’”
Glasneck’s next book, part of the “Order of the Dragon” series, titled “Five to Rise,” has a release date of Oct. 31.
NASA is streaming Astrobotic’s Peregrine launch this Thursday, May 4. It’s free to watch online, but registration is required for access via Eventbrite.
