Artemis II is unlikely to be the cultural touchstone Apollo 8 was, and that’s OK

NASA has struggled to deal with the widespread sentiment that NASA has “been there, done that."

See full article...

 

[OrvGull]

Frankly, I don't get this attitude. To date in 2026, there have been 92 days where there was some kind of awful bullshit to be concerned with. How come for one day - NO, just even PART of one day, we can't just acknowledge that something significant and interesting happened? Those things are so few and far between that we shouldn't just ignore them.

For me it's the knowledge that Trump will inevitably use this to burnish his image and gain support for the next awful thing he does.

 

[uhuznaa]

But as I originally said, even if Orion does have a future despite my misgivings, the bulk of Artemis II hardware (all the way through to the launch pad and ground support/servicing/stacking infrastructure), is still a dead end. So, hurray for NASA building "muscle memory" supporting and operating garbage that will be headed straight to the dumpster 4-5 missions from now...

This always was the fate of SLS and Orion. SLS would never have been used for anything else but Artemis and Orion too. This is (besides the cost of all this) the major reason to not like them. There's just no future with anything of this besides their bespoke missions. Nobody ever will buy an SLS launch for anything else.

 

[Statistical]

For me it's the knowledge that Trump will inevitably use this to burnish his image and gain support for the next awful thing he does.

Will it matter though. At this point people who support Trump will always support him and I doubt Artemis II registers high enough for the other 60%+ of the country to change anything. Trump will just do terrible things because he is terrible and doesn't care what people think.

I would add Trump is a bit of a dimwit he seemed in the past having trouble understanding why we can't just land on the moon in a single year. As such he sees anything but the actual landing as worthless nerd stuff. He just wants the landing to happen while he is President to get in the history books for that. The good news is even trying I don't think NASA has any chance of a landing before 01/20/2029. Realistically it is more likely 2030 but maybe 2029 if the stars align.

 

[dmevis]

Manned space flight is an enormous waste of money. It is hubris, not science.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

The very things you mentioned in the end of the article as pluses, increased commercialization and privatization of space alongside vastly increased militarization of space, are what’s causing the malaise and disillusionment with the so-called US space program. Of course everyone hates the US now thanks to Trump, that doesn’t help! NASA is being run by a billionaire nepo-baby tech-bro for a tyrannical white Nationalist President. It’s all about colonizing the moon by billionaires for billionaires. Depressing.

NASA told a story about space with the Apollo flights, the Mars rovers, and the new telescope that was about a wide variety of humanity working together to achieve advancement, knowledge, progress. NASA used to be famous for international cooperation and for the impressive achievements of its highly respected staff of women, minorities, and immigrants. People of achievement and culture used to dream of coming to the US because of our commitment to equality, because NASA was a place that valued knowledge and skill over connections and family wealth. Now the US federal government blatantly punishes women, trans people, and non-whites who don’t go to the Right Church — and instead promotes incompetent white men with connections.

That is broadly true, yet patently false in Isaacman's case. He's an actual astronaut (not a tourist like Bezos), as well as an actual jet fighter pilot (though not for the Pentagon). He has started and ran multiple successful, large-scale businesses - so has the financial and administrative, as well as cheerleading, and marketing chops. He's also clearly a skilled politician, having managed to initiate and form a broad consensus (including Congressional!) around thorough and long-needed reforms that were out of reach for previous NASA administrators who actually were professional politicians (e.g. Bridenstine and Nelson.)

Indeed, Isaacman may well be the one and only Trump appointment who is actually qualified and fit for the job.

 

[Tonkaman]

I dunno why, but adding less than the flight distance from Seattle to London onto the previous record doesn't exactly feel like a thrilling accomplishment.

Well, there is the fact that this time they're doing it intentionally. Apollo 13 did it out of necessity (to get the gravity sling shot angle right to get home without a functional craft) and wasn't exactly designed to do that.

 

[OrvGull]

On a certain level this also just feels like a "Plan B" after going to Mars proved too hard. Remember when Elon said he'd be landing regular cargo flights there by 2022?

 

[Statistical]

Indeed, Isaacman nay well be the one and only Trump appointment who is actually qualified and fit for the job.

Yeah he had the incredibly rare combination of enthusiasm, skills, and willingness to shake things up. Then he was also willing to shmooze up to Trump (I know I couldn't) for who knows how long to get the job to begin with. Reminds me of that line from Chernobyl. "[Trump] mistakenly sent the one good man."

 

[uhuznaa]

Those reasons have nothing to do with space flight. Maybe if we spent this money on high speed rail or renewable power we could look like we were competing with China on meaningful terms.

For this the US would need a benevolent dictator instead of an idiot king...

 

[Statistical]

On a certain level this also just feels like a "Plan B" after going to Mars proved too hard. Remember when Elon said he'd be landing regular cargo flights there by 2022?

Was that too hard or just bullshit for hype though? Remember when Tesla FSD was going to drive coast to coast hand free in 2018 and robo taxis that made your Tesla pay for itself.

 

[HoorayForEverything]

I find this kind of doomerist attitude slightly off-putting. Yes, the current US administration isn't the greatest when it comes to science. But there will be a new president in under 3 years. And in less than 1 year, midterms, which will probably put a crimp in the Donald's desires.

I think this is fair, and everyone in defence and aerospace has to just operate on the assumption it'll settle down this way come 2029. In a way there's no point doing otherwise because if something other than the obvious regression to the mean happens, you have no idea what it will be - so why plan for it?

But on that point of "planning" - that's much more the issue rather than the will or not to co-operate. It's very hard to co-operate with a total randomer. There's no operation to co- with.

As for pooh-poohing international cooperation, did you miss the announcement today of the deal with the Italians?
https://europeanspaceflight.com/italy-signs-agreement-with-nasa-to-cooperate-on-moon-base/

Hmm. This is quite a good example of cooperation degrading. It's now one seat instead of three, and there's nothing in place beyond the vision. That is a major downgrade from three seats and some corporate velocity in the right direction.

This just kinda happened one morning that Isaacman woke up. [ETA - this might be unfair on Isaacman, he may have been reacting to things upstream]

This is a downgrade to the outcome, and to the posture, and it causes the ESA collateral damage. And this is directly because of the unstructured way that's happening, causing fallout for international partners and no comeback on the US partner.

Thales (and Italy) thought they were building a space station, and Italy, and the other ESA partners all thought they were getting three seats in return, and the ESA presumably fought some significant political battles around the EU to allow Italy to have all three. Now all that is outta the window and we start again, except now everyone's pissed off before anything even happens.

This isn't new cooperation - it's an example of making existing co-operation weaker.

 

[Statistical]

Well, there is the fact that this time they're doing it intentionally. Apollo 13 did it out of necessity (to get the gravity sling shot angle right to get home without a functional craft) and wasn't exactly designed to do that.

Well Apollo 13 likely would have set the distance record even if it had landed on the moon. Like Artemis II the moon was near its apogee. It wasn't intentional for either mission it just worked out that way. The fact that Apollo 13 was near the apogee AND had to do a FRT pretty much sealed it for the rest of the Apollo missions.

 

[Jeff S]

Frankly, I don't get this attitude. To date in 2026, there have been 92 days where there was some kind of awful bullshit to be concerned with. How come for one day - NO, just even PART of one day, we can't just acknowledge that something significant and interesting happened? Those things are so few and far between that we shouldn't just ignore them.

Well, from my perspective, sure you can do what you want. I'm not trying to tell you what to do.

I'm just exhausted by what's happening, and while it's cool we finally launched a manned mission to. . . fly around the moon, again, I'm just overwhelmed. I'm just speaking for me.

 

[uhuznaa]

Yeah he had the incredibly rare combination of enthusiasm, skills, and willingness to shake things up. Then he was also willing to shmooze up to Trump for who knows how long to get the job to begin with. Reminds me of that line from Chernobyl. "Trump mistakenly sent the one good man."

Would be great if Trump could learn from this. Learning doesn't seem to be one of his strengths though.

 

[Statistical]

Hmm. This is quite a good example of cooperation degrading. It's now one seat instead of three, and there's nothing in place beyond the vision. That is a major downgrade from three seats and some corporate velocity in the right direction.

At least one seat. Also seat TO THE LUNAR SURFACE is likely worth more than thee seats to the gateway to nowhere which is kinda close to the moon if you squint a bit and don't think to hard about it.

This isn't new cooperation - it's an example of making existing co-operation weaker.

Or the fact that the US might land on the moon is enough for others to consider similar programs. JAXA is building the pressurized rover in order to land a Japanese astronaut on the moon.

Most countries can't have a crewed lunar program even if they had the expertise. The costs are easily in the tens of billions of dollars without pork. China can do it. India someday could do it. Most other countries just don't have that kind of budget. However trading a billion dollars (singular) in development to get one seat it possible.

 

[Statistical]

Would be great if Trump could learn from this. Learning doesn't seem to be one of his strengths though.

Not even sure Trump realizes that the director is doing good things which is likely a good thing. He no doubt has to sooth Trump's ego as the ongoing cost to keep the job in order to do the good things that Trump doesn't even understand or care about.

 

[Aurich]

Ironic given today.


https://europeanspaceflight.com/italy-signs-agreement-with-nasa-to-cooperate-on-moon-base/

Italy signs agreement with NASA to develop lunar surface base. Why would they do that? They want an Italian to land on the moon and for the first time in decades it looks like that might actually happen.

I mean, cool? But also ... okay? Like if that's your big rejoinder I'm not really sure what you expect the reaction to be.

Trump just flipped an enormous middle finger to all of Europe. That Italy is continuing to honor a process that started years ago is nice, but it's really not relevant to the larger conversation.

No offense to Italy implied. They're the home of a lot of great craftsmanship.

It never has. When Apollo was happening Martin Luther King was assassinated are the US was murdering people in Vietnam. We only did it to beat the Soviets. I don't mean in general but the moon itself. We only chose that because they would have beat us to any other finish line. Arguably though out of all of that Apollo was one of the great things that came out of that time period. Would Artemis disappearing tomorrow make anything about the US or the world better?

I definitely don't think Artemis disappearing would help anything, no. Nor do I care what it's costing us for that matter. People like to argue about the prices of these programs, but in the face of what we're spending now in the pointless war on Iran it feels like a silly thing to work up over.

I'm simply trying to explain a viewpoint where it doesn't feel particularly exciting or important to shoot people up into space in the face of everything else. It's not a "I wish we weren't doing it" vibe from me, it's a "I just don't find it exciting".

I don't personally find it historic. Why would it be? We're not even landing on the Moon, and we've already done that. I find this idea that we're 'racing' China or any other country silly to the extreme. Racing them to what? Doing something again? We won that race decades ago. It doesn't work to try and play that card again.

 

[lordloki]

Yikes. It seems like this article struggles to find justifcation for why we're doing this and then concludes that this is.. "OK anyways" ? I'm not sure that it is OK or that we ought to be doing this, and I'm a space nerd too.. but doing wildly expensive things just for the show is.. well, pretty wasteful. There's a lot of effort being spent here that could be spent somewhere else, and if you can't put a more full-throated defense behind the why, of course you deserve to be questioned. There seems to be an implicit assumption here that Artemis II is actually a good use of resources, and maybe we ought to be concerned that it isn't.

I've got several gripes here:

1. It’s only in the last year that the threat of China landing humans on the Moon before the United States has become a clear and present danger to US supremacy in space. -- Well, no, that's rather impossible. The US did it first ages ago.. who cares if the Chinese visit the moon now ? Let them ? Visiting again proves nothing in terms of national pride or space access. Re-fighting the cold war gets us nowhere technologically.
   
   
2. The whole second section is titled: "Maybe it doesn’t matter if the public cares" -- Well, it only matters if you have any respect for the taxpayer paying the bills and you're not so deep into the space world that you take government support as a given. Of course it matters that the public cares , where do you think the money comes from ?
   
   If we do this Moon stuff right, the public does not need to really understand what is happening.-- The elitism here is staggering. You are spending tens of billions of public funds, and your defense is that it's "totally fine" if the people footing the bill don't understand or care? The author literally points out that 90% of Americans don't care about returning to the Moon, and somehow spins this massive lack of public mandate as a positive.
   
   
   
3. No longer are politics or funding the real hurdles facing NASA... Artemis only works because private companies like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Axiom Space are trying to make a business out of spaceflight -- This is a massive contradiction. The author admits Congress won't increase NASA's budget because there is no public will, but then turns around and claims funding is no longer a hurdle because we're using "commercial partners." Who exactly does he think is paying SpaceX and Blue Origin? The federal government! It's still taxpayer money.

I don't want to see the space program de-funded as I believe it still has value and merit and i'm immensely proud of it, but if these are the best arguments we've got.. yikes.. maybe it DOES deserve a bit of an axe. We've got to do better arguing for why the space program ought to exist than this. Preaching to the choir and sounding entitled is not going to get us there.

You do understand what "tens of billions of dollars" means as a percentage of the US budget, yes? Total outlays in 2026 are expected to be 7.6 TRILLION dollars. It's barely a quarter of a single percent of the spend. It's not even a rounding error. You can like or or dislike it all you want, but it's nonsense to complain about the cost as your primary concern.

 

[Statistical]

I'm simply trying to explain a viewpoint where it doesn't feel particularly exciting or important to shoot people up into space in the face of everything else. It's not a "I wish we weren't doing it" vibe from me, it's a "I just don't find it exciting".

I don't personally find it historic. Why would it be? We're not even landing on the Moon, and we've already done that.

Fair enough and while this is a common viewpoint I find it sad. We left the moon in the 1970s for many of us that was a mistake but it happened. We can't go back and undo that. So what is the solution? We never return to the moon again. No matter how little or long we wait it will always have been something we already did. We can't pass the capabilities of the 1970s without doing it again especially not after a 50 year gap.

Even in Apollo we didn't land on the moon in the first mission. That would have been reckless and stupid. I find it exciting I guess because the only way we do MORE than we did on the moon in the 1970s is to land on the moon yes "again". The only way we land on the moon is to do that is all the stuff that comes before a lunar landing like this mission which is elements of Apollo 7 & Apollo 8.

We aren't just going to go from zero experience beyond earth orbit in the last 50 years to permanent moonbase in one mission. That is as true today as it will be in 2126.

 

[bb-15]

it does seem like there's a real plan right now to move on and go further than what Apollo did. The goal here isn't just to fly around the Moon, or even to land on the Moon, the goal is to build a permanent base on the Moon, with more than just two people spending a few hours or a few days on the Lunar surface. And that would go far beyond what Apollo ever accomplished.

Agreed. And the benefits for science from lunar bases will be significant. See the many research stations at Antartica for similar scientific benefits.
The goal of China and the US to build a lunar outpost or permanent base at the South Pole of the Moon goes beyond Apollo.
Humans living on the Moon for months will be a significant step for civilization. It doesn’t matter who the US President is. After all, Nixon was in office when the Apollo Moon landings occurred.

The reason for the push to fund NASA to build this South Pole lunar outpost / base was explained in the Eric Berger editorial.

”It’s only in the last year that the threat of China landing humans on the Moon before the United States has become a clear and present danger to US supremacy in space, and this reality has become widely accepted by the politicians in Congress who write space policy.”

This fear of China building a lunar South Pole base first, by 2035, has guaranteed that NASA will do what it can to build a South Pole Moon outpost/base first.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

Fair enough and while this is a common viewpoint I find it sad. We left the moon in the 1970s for many of us that was a mistake but it happened. We can't go back and undo that. So what is the solution? We never return to the moon again. No matter how little or long we wait it will always have been something we already did. We can't pass the capabilities of the 1970s without doing it again especially not after a 50 year gap.

Even in Apollo we didn't land on the moon in the first mission. That would have been reckless and stupid. It would be reckless and stupid for us to try as well. I find it exciting I guess because the only way we do MORE than we did on the moon in the 1970s is to land on the moon yes "again". The only way we land on the moon is to do that is all the stuff that comes before a lunar landing like this mission which is elements of Apollo 7 & Apollo 8.

We aren't just going to go from zero experience beyond earth orbit in the last 50 years to permanent moonbase in one mission. That is as true today as it will be in 2126.

On one hand....

On the other hand, raw capabilities are more fundamental and, to me, exciting. If we weren't going to the Moon yet, but instead developing the means to put a crapload of mass into orbit super-cheaply, first, then I'd be actually more enthusiastic. Because building such capabilities makes any future Moon programs more feasible and more scalable.

That's why I still track the development of Starship and New Glenn with enthusiasm, even though I've come to loathe the respective billionaires. Even now, when Starship v3 goes for its debut on flight 12, I'll be more enthusiastic for that, than I am for Artemis II.

 

[Statistical]

On one hand....

On the other hand, raw capabilities are more fundamental and, to me, exciting. If we weren't going to the Moon yet, but instead developing the means to put a crapload of mass into orbit super-cheaply, first, then I'd be actually more enthusiastic. Because building such capabilities makes any future Moon programs more feasible and more scalable.

That's why I still track the development of Starship and New Glenn with enthusiasm, even though I've come to loathe the respective billionaires. Even now, when Starship v3 goes for its debut on flight 12, I'll be more enthusiastic for that, than I am for Artemis II.

But we are doing both right? If SpaceX and BO needed NASA funding to develop their launch vehicles and NASA was saying no because cheap launch to space is dumb well that would be different. However we have two economical super heavy lift launch vehicles in the works. Exactly how economical, how super, and when are in flux but LV aren't going to be the limit for HSF in the 2030s. We are also going to the moon increasing capabilities with each mission.

 

[Ushio]

This Artemis nonsense is because of delusions of grandeur by the pedo in chief, pork for his political supporters and more money into the furnace of old space.

 

[Aurich]

Fair enough and while this is a common viewpoint I find it sad. We left the moon in the 1970s for many of us that was a mistake but it happened. We can't go back and undo that. So what is the solution? We never return to the moon again. No matter how little or long we wait it will always have been something we already did. We can't pass the capabilities of the 1970s without doing it again especially not after a 50 year gap.

Even in Apollo we didn't land on the moon in the first mission. That would have been reckless and stupid. It would be reckless and stupid for us to try as well. I find it exciting I guess because the only way we do MORE than we did on the moon in the 1970s is to land on the moon yes "again". The only way we land on the moon is to do that is all the stuff that comes before a lunar landing like this mission which is elements of Apollo 7 & Apollo 8.

We aren't just going to go from zero experience beyond earth orbit in the last 50 years to permanent moonbase in one mission. That is as true today as it will be in 2126.

My basic attitude to this stuff is this:

I'm not interested in the idea of a base on the Moon or Mars, like even aspirationally, if we cannot take care of the priorities at home.

I find it almost offensive in fact to think that we're willing to spend the billions and billions of dollars to house a handful of people on the moon when we're driving our own citizens into sleeping in their cars, if they're lucky.

You want me to support space aspirations? As a citizen and voter and voice? Act like being a humanitarian matters. Soulless technocrats aren't a future I'm interested in.

Or to sum it up: I don't care what you want to spend on space races and toys and tech, but only if there's a willingness to also invest at home too. If it's just the former, and not the latter, then I'm not caring at best, and hostile at worst.

Is that complicated? Yes. Do I care? No.

You asked if the world would be better off without Artemis, and I said no. But the world would be better off without Elon Musk. And if that meant SpaceX was worse off because he truly was some magic sauce for it existing like some believe? Oh well.

I won't celebrate rocket launches built on the backs of human misery.

 

[josephhansen]

Would Artemis disappearing tomorrow make anything about the US or the world better?

You could solve world hunger 15.6 times over with the budget Artemis has already spent, assuming the six billion dollar figure provided from the UN's World Food Programme a few years ago is still accurate

 

[Aurich]

You could solve world hunger 15.6 times over with the budget Artemis has already spent, assuming the six billion dollar figure provided from the UN's World Food Programme a few years ago is still accurate

Or, the money being spent bombing Iran for pointless reasons.

I think it's pointless to act like NASA is the place where the US is wasting money if we're going to play that game.

 

[Statistical]

You could solve world hunger 15.6 times over with the budget Artemis has already spent, assuming the six billion dollar figure provided from the UN's World Food Programme a few years ago is still accurate

But that money wouldn't have been spent on that. If you canceled Artemis it would just be gone and that money wouldn't have been spent on solving world hunger either. Not just that it wouldn't have been spent on anything progressive at all.

It isn't a zero sum game. The same administration bombing hospitals in Iran and murdering US citizens isn't going to go oh you ended HSF let me use that money for some progressive goals. The administration also zeroed out funding for mRNA vaccines as well. Ending Artemis wouldn't magic that back. If you gave Trump $1T why would he spend even a single cent of that on ANY progressive agenda given he is gutting and sidelining progressive programs that are already funded.

To be clear I think world hunger is a complex issue and I doubt a single $60B payment would solve it but lets say it could. Lets say with absolute certainly that exactly $60B would end world hunger forever. The US could do that right now AND fund Artemis. Combined they wouldn't even be 1% of the federal budget. Hell we could have just said "nope not going to blow up Iran for no reasons" taken that money solved world hunger and still have $140B extra to do other progressive stuff.

It wasn't about the money. It never is.

 

[Mongo McMongo]

Shocking mask-off moment:

This is poison to democracy. We get consulted for some very good reasons, and sometimes we say "no" to stuff that an individual would rather we didn't.

Feynman put it succinctly in the report on the Challenger disaster:

And they must be realistic in making contracts, in estimating costs, and the difficulty of the projects.Only realistic flight schedules should be proposed, schedules that have a reasonable chance of being met. If in this way the government would not support them, then so be it. NASA owes it to the citizens from whom it asks support to be frank, honest, and informative, so that these citizens can make the wisest decisions for the use of their limited resources.

Idealistic? Perhaps. But the alternative approaches to governance have all proven worse in the long run.

 

[Dan Homerick]

No it is not. Not by actual NASA regs. Not by anything that would actually be safer.

Are you seriously saying NASA should change their regs in order to make them less safe in order to save what we have already pointed out is a relatively trivial amount of money?

Not for money, no. I do think that NASA would be willing to rewrite every rule in their rulebook in order to land people on the Moon in Trump's term, though. Not throw out safety altogether, but to rewrite how they evaluate safety.

If Starship has launched and landed 50+ times (a mere year of weekly flights), I think "flight heritage" will sway them to allow abort plans that are, in some scenarios, quite infeasible (much as some of STS's abort scenarios were infeasible). Only for the sake of landing on the right side of the magic Jan 20th date, though.

We'll see what happens if (when?) Artemis III isn't ready on schedule. What ultimately shakes out will highly depend on which component loses that round of schedule chicken.

 

[cyberfunk]

Of course it matters. The fact that the US did it 50 years ago would make it worse. It would feed into the narrative (true to some degree) of the US being a nation in decline and China one in ascendancy. .......

I think you’re overstating both the geopolitical argument and the “public support doesn’t matter” argument.

On the first point: yes, headlines matter, but headlines are not the same thing as substance. If China lands people on the Moon before the US returns, that may create an embarrassing news cycle, but it does not erase the fact that America already achieved the actual historic first decades ago. More importantly, prestige by itself is a weak justification for pouring vast sums into a repeat lunar mission. If the main case for Artemis is “it would look bad if China got there first this time,” then that is basically an argument for symbolism, not for durable scientific, economic, or strategic value.

If public caring mattered then the SLS wouldn't exist at all.

You could not have picked a better example to address the second point. Saying public enthusiasm is unnecessary because big programs survive without it is not really a defense... it is an indictment of how disconnected these programs can become from democratic accountability. The SLS in particular is widely acknowledged as a bit of abominable pork in light of what commercial companies have been able to do outside of the traditional aerospace way.

Yes, plenty of federal programs limp along for years without broad public excitement, but “government can keep paying for something people barely care about” is not the same as “this is a good use of taxpayer money.” If advocates cannot explain a clear public benefit beyond prestige, contractor alignment, or bureaucratic momentum, then skepticism is not only reasonable, it is necessary.

 

[Statistical]

Not for money, no. I do think that NASA would be willing to rewrite every rule in their rulebook in order to land people on the Moon in Trump's term, though. Not throw out safety altogether, but to rewrite how they evaluate safety.

If Starship has launched and landed 50+ times (a mere year of weekly flights), I think "flight heritage" will sway them to allow abort plans that are, in some scenarios, quite infeasible (much as some of STS's abort scenarios were infeasible). Only for the sake of landing on the right side of the magic Jan 20th date, though.

We'll see what happens if (when?) Artemis III isn't ready on schedule. What ultimately shakes out will highly depend on which component loses that round of schedule chicken.

Orion isn't going to be the long tent pole for a landing on the moon. The landers will be. I think a moon landing is not happening in Trump's term regardless but if it isn't it won't be because of Orion.

Look Orion and SLS are expensive, stupidly expensive, unsustainably expensive but they have largely shown their portion is ready. They are too slow and expensive to do cool stuff like landing on the moon multiple times a year which would support ambitious things but they can support the first landing even future landings at one a year. You need a lander to land on the moon though. You need a lander to do a checkout of the landers in LEO too and they are unlikely to be ready for that either in mid 2027.

If Starship has launched and landed 50+ times (a mere year of weekly flights), I think "flight heritage" will sway them to allow abort plans that are, in some scenarios, quite infeasible (much as some of STS's abort scenarios were infeasible). Only for the sake of landing on the right side of the magic Jan 20th date, though.

Changing gears right now is likely to get us to the moon slower not faster. To be clear I am not saying we SHOULD rush to to get to the moon faster. I really hope we don't get to the moon until 01/21/2029 or later. Still this wouldn't help them land sooner.

 

[Statistical]

You could not have picked a better example to address the second point. Saying public enthusiasm is unnecessary because big programs survive without it is not really a defense... it is an indictment of how disconnected these programs can become from democratic accountability. The SLS in particular is widely acknowledged as a bit of abominable embarrassing pork in light of what commercial companies have been able to do outside of the traditional areospace way. Yes, plenty of federal programs limp along for years without broad public excitement, but “government can keep paying for something people barely care about” is not the same as “this is a good use of taxpayer money.” If advocates cannot explain a clear public benefit beyond prestige, contractor alignment, or bureaucratic momentum, then skepticism is not only reasonable, it is necessary.

I am not saying it is a defense I am saying it is a reality.

People on ars often take this viewpoint that if someone says X they support X or they say X SHOULD happen. The fact that SLS is still around is pretty compelling evidence that public sentiment doesn't really matter.

Likewise the ISS is less of a boondoggle but most Americans couldn't give two shits about it either. If you offered a random persons $10,000 to name a single person on the ISS right now they couldn't. Most couldn't name the vehicle that fly to the ISS either. Despite that it has been funded for 30 years.

Yes in an ideal world the SLS being so loathed would have meant it died 10 years ago because it was impossible to justify more funds and members of Congress publicly apologizing and yet ... that didn't happen.

 

[thelongdarkteatimeof]

Because Universal Healthcare would actually help people.

 

[thelongdarkteatimeof]

Because enriching the Military Industrial Complex is more important than helping people.

 

[randomuser42]

You could solve world hunger 15.6 times over with the budget Artemis has already spent, assuming the six billion dollar figure provided from the UN's World Food Programme a few years ago is still accurate

Those figures make unrealistic assumptions about how that money is spent. The US spends like one hundred billion dollars on its own population's food and nutrition, and can't even solve hunger within its own borders: https://usafacts.org/explainers/what-does-the-us-government-do/subagency/food-and-nutrition-service/

The reason hunger and poverty and other social ills exist is not because we don't spend enough money combating them. We actually spend more than enough. Money isn't the problem.

 

[Mongo McMongo]

At least with Nixon you could be fairly certain he wouldn't ask if Neil Armstrong's daughter was fuckable yet.

The joke from the late 1990s:

Kennedy, Nixon, and Clinton are on a sinking ship; it's the Titanic and there aren't enough lifeboats.

"Women and children first!", exclaims Kennedy.
"Fuck the children!", snarls Nixon.
"Do we have time?", enquires Clinton.

Ah, those halcyon days, when a consensual but improper, borderline abusive, relationship could be grounds for phrases like "moral turpitude" and impeachments, and not just a drop in the daily bucket.

 

[Wickwick]

Orion isn't going to be the long tent pole for a landing on the moon.

We hope. it's still got one more job to do. Even if the heatshield is just a bit off-nominal like we saw for A1, Orion can quickly become the pacing item.

 

[OrvGull]

You do understand what "tens of billions of dollars" means as a percentage of the US budget, yes? Total outlays in 2026 are expected to be 7.6 TRILLION dollars. It's barely a quarter of a single percent of the spend. It's not even a rounding error. You can like or or dislike it all you want, but it's nonsense to complain about the cost as your primary concern.

On the one hand, that's true; on the other hand, we're constantly told the government is broke and can't afford social programs, while meanwhile we shovel piles of money at NASA and the Defense Department Department of War.

 

[randomuser42]

On the one hand, that's true; on the other hand, we're constantly told the government is broke and can't afford social programs, while meanwhile we shovel piles of money at NASA and the Defense Department Department of War.

Putting NASA and the DoD's budgets in the same paragraph makes me think you have no idea what either of those budgets are. Like we spend two whole orders of magnitude more money on social programs than NASA. If you think social programs are important (and they are) and NASA is nearly useless, then the US budget today accurately reflects that prioritization.

 

[YetAnotherBoris]

On the first point: yes, headlines matter, but headlines are not the same thing as substance. If China lands people on the Moon before the US returns, that may create an embarrassing news cycle, but it does not erase the fact that America already achieved the actual historic first decades ago. More importantly, prestige by itself is a weak justification for pouring vast sums into a repeat lunar mission. If the main case for Artemis is “it would look bad if China got there first this time,” then that is basically an argument for symbolism, not for durable scientific, economic, or strategic value.

Never underestimate the jingoist, White Nationalist, and Fascist contingents of American politics. Motivations that are objectively ludicrous or even wrong and toxic to people like me or probably you, are perfectly natural and intestinal for them.

You could not have picked a better example to address the second point. Saying public enthusiasm is unnecessary because big programs survive without it is not really a defense... it is an indictment of how disconnected these programs can become from democratic accountability. The SLS in particular is widely acknowledged as a bit of abominable pork in light of what commercial companies have been able to do outside of the traditional aerospace way.

Yes, plenty of federal programs limp along for years without broad public excitement, but “government can keep paying for something people barely care about” is not the same as “this is a good use of taxpayer money.” If advocates cannot explain a clear public benefit beyond prestige, contractor alignment, or bureaucratic momentum, then skepticism is not only reasonable, it is necessary.

How many Pentagon programs do American voters have any insight into? NASA's entire budget (including the science mission directorate, all the centers and facilities, and all the rest) would fit inside the Pentagon's 40 times over.

I mean, is it an indictment? Maybe, but then again we have a representative rather than direct democracy. And a major reason for that, is that the average citizen has neither the expertise, nor the time, not the interest in actually running the government. So we pay our taxes, and elect people to run our government for us. And those people end up making decisions for all sorts of reasons, including ones completely opaque to the average citizen. That's just the way it is, and I don't think it can ever change.