For the first time NASA has released its first digital, interactive graphic novel on Saturday in the celebration of National Comic Book Day. It is named “First Woman: NASA’s Promise for Humanity” and imagines the story of Callie Rodriguez. She is a fictional character and the first woman to explore the moon. Even though she is a fictional character, the first woman and first person of color will walk on the Moon. She will achieve a historic milestones as part of NASA’s Artemis missions. With this interactive graphic novel NASA aims to inspire nest generation of explorers- the Artmeis Generation.
“With the story of Callie NASA has captured how passion, dedication and perseverance allows us to turn dreams to reality,” said NASA Deputy Administrator Pam Melroy. “ Callie like myself grew her skills, seized learning opportunities and overcame challenges to become a NASA astronaut. It’s important we see ourselves as the explorers among the star.”
The 40 page comic book highlights NASA technologies for travelling, landing on and exploring the moon. There is too digital version letting readers engage and interact through augmented reality elements using First Woman website on mobile devices. Readers can download First Woman applications for Android and there is additional content which includes video games, challenges to earn collector badges and ways to virtually in NASA missions.
“We crafted this graphic novel and digital ecosystem to share NASA’s work in different and exciting way,” said Derek Wang director of communications for the space technology Mission Directorate at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington. “We set out to make the content of Novel both engaging and accessible. This comic book aims to inspire space fans to all aged hardworking educators for new ways to get students excited about STEM. We hope there is something for everyone to enjoy.”
You can download, read and interact with “First Woman” or listen to the audio version exclusively on NASA’s Sound cloud. Also NASA plans to work and release Spanish version of the first issue of the comic book named “From Dreams to Reality,” in the future.