"Space Odyssey", with the subtitle: 'The Beginning' Author: THADDEUS HUTYRA. Excerpt: Lunar Epic From the Moon’s outermost orbit, Earth for a brief moment, became a moon itself, a slender crescent, a croissant of light suspended in the dark. A Moon for the Moon. Not from our earthly point of view, but from the deck of Orion, in the silence of the Artemis II mission, which that night was circling the side of the Moon hidden from Earth. This is how Earth appeared from the crew’s console, before and after a brief, forty-minute journey along the hidden orbit. Earth, a luminous crescent against the vastness. And then there was only the return… A return to the blue pearl, to our home, to us. A new era has begun, an era in which human consciousness will journey to the stars. Excerpt 2: STARSHIP, A SILVER ARK! /sonnet/ . Beyond Earth’s shores, where silent heavens gleam, Who now dares sail the dark, uncharted sea? Past Moonlit harbors where pale shadows dream, Toward Mars and stars that call us eternally. . One name ascends like fire against the night: Elon Musk, with vision forged in flame, Whose Starship climbs beyond our earthly sight, To carve mankind’s tomorrow in its name. . Starship, a silver ark upon the cosmic tide! To bear forever our restless consciousness afar! With daring all the hope and science as its guide, It shall even seek new dawns beneath another star. . With SpaceX and NASA beside that blazing spark, Humanity may finally, proudly leave its ancient dark.