Why don't I care about the Artemis mission/program?
By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I've been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just... don't care at all. I'm not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven't clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I'm wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
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It's been overshadowed by other current events. Quite a shame, really
It's more than that. The thought of us doing something incredible like establishing a permanent moon base feels more depressing than inspiring these days because enshitification will be baked into it right from the planning stages
I have become very cynical of tech over the past several years and am strongly opposed to any sort of space colonization.
Me to. Theres a podcast called "tech won't save us" that i hate listening to because it reminds me how much we have lost.
I get your sentiment but that's exactly why we need space colonization.
There is a thing called translatio imperii which means that empires aren't created nor destroyed, they just move from one location to the next, always on the frontline of humanity.
If we don't get spaceflight, the US will stay an imperial entity for eternity. Only if space colonization succeeds, mars can become the next empire which means that the US stops being one, interestingly.
Fuck that. Saying empires are inevitable is a lot like saying fascism is inevitable. Maybe it's true but you shouldn't identify with the thing and make it's purpose your own
That's complete and utter bullshit.
"Frontline of humanity" what does that even mean, historically? Humanity has always been spread across the earth.
I see absolutely no evidence for this historically, what I see is just people in the Middle Ages trying to brand themselves as the successors to Rome for PR.
The idea of Mars becoming an "empire" is pure fantasy. We can't even begin to talk about the lack of natural resources when there's literally no air. Maybe in 40,000 years or something, but not on any foreseeable timescale.
This is straight up magical thinking. You might as well say that someone has to sacrifice a virgin goat on the night that the stars are in alignment for the US empire to end. There is zero logical or causal connection between those things, and empires don't just last "eternally" unless somebody casts the right magic spell.
Similarly, the NYT predicted in 1903 that it would take "one million to ten million years for humanity to develop an operating flying machine" (airplane). The wright brothers achieved the first powered airplane flight sixty-nine days later. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Machines_Which_Do_Not_Fly
You might want to think about this.
A technological breakthrough could make Mars colonization feasible. It might even be possible for it to be self-sustaining. Who knows?
But an empire? That's utterly ridiculous. You might as well say that the thing that the American empire will last eternally unless and until we genetically engineer a race of intelligent dragons who will replace it with a dragon empire, and if anyone expresses skepticism of that fantasy, you could just as easily point to "people didn't think the Wright Brothers could fly."
One wrong skeptic a hundred years ago doesn't mean every fantasy is going to happen. There's countless predictions that didn't come true.
What's your argument here? Why is it ridiculous?
Thats actually a perfect explanation that I think is inline with this
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/YfhA3KWLtFqBeFnpb/my-specific-singularity-timeline-to-utopia
Class warfare will be the foundation it's all built on. Any tech developed for the moon, Mars, whatever - anything we gain in knowledge in return - is going to go to benefit rich fuckers, not you. One day there will be more space tourists. Rich people, not you. Maybe one day Man will even colonize another world. Rich people, not you.
Maybe they will take us along as servants? Oh, no, they will build robots for that...
In case we're not familiar with the cultural/economic backdrop of Bladerunner, etc.:
::: spoiler spoiler all humans that could afford to leave the planet had done so long before the period the first movie was set in, and those humans that couldn't quietly, secretly turned into unpaid, unwitting sublime training nodes for each new model of replicant —until said trainees failed to recall their synthetic origins, and could replace the humans without any blowback, scrutiny, or awareness of it at all, really. 😶 :::
This is not scifi. This is where those fucknuts are aiming our species. 🥲
Plus, space travel mainly benefits the super rich.
Ay?
Do you mean only the super rich will be able to travel?
The only travel anyone will be doing in the next 100 years or more will be going to the moon to squeeze into a tiny smelly hab module to figure out how to avoid getting regolith in your ass crack.
I think space travel will be the exclusive reserve of hard core science nuts.
Even in say 500 years. Will there be a "colony" on Mars with anything more than a dozen science nerds? I doubt it.
If the Untied States manages to survive the mess it is in, it will probably declare ownership of the moon and declare anyone else who manages to land there illegal aliens....including actual aliens
That goddamn scandal. The persecution of minorities and the warmongering. The socio-political climate now is far worse compared to the Apollo missions then conducted at the time the US government was unpopular mainly because of the Vietnam War.
The arguments against Artemis aren't surprising as these also mirror the skepticism towards the Apollo program.
I'm finding it hard to be happy about any of the positives coming from the US government these days. A couple of bright spots don't really outshine the depressing everything else.
The "positives" don't usually translate to any sort of benefit for the average person. Yes, I am aware that there are exceptions to this.
Spaceflight creates jobs.
Jobs that keep supporting and propping up the system we live in.
oddly enough i had a discussion with somebody just today that AI is bad because it reduces jobs. now you're telling me that spaceflight is bad because it creates jobs?
It's almost as if you're speaking with different people with different views.
I for example would have told you that AI reducing jobs is amazing and ideally all jobs should be automated, so that everyone can choose to do exactly what they like at all times.
In red states. In some of the worst red states
It also wasnt even really a bright spot because it was being actively used as a propaganda story for Trump.
It's hard to be excited about going to space when you can't afford to exist on earth.
I should be way more excited, but the current administration has ruined everything. NASA is too focused on creating a moon base which is dumb as shit. Let's try and save earth before jumping ship to another planet.
Why dumb?
Even if you want a Mars base eventually, it seems like a good idea to get some practice building a similar moon base first. Many of the problems will be the same, but it will be much easier, cheaper, and safer to learn them in a place which is only days away from resupply.
Yeah I’d argue time is actually the most expensive thing for a mars mission. And that’s going to require a hell of a lot of mission time nobody knows how to do yet. We get a head start on it now, getting a working lifter series in production and a functioning commercial lander and habitation scene and you’ll have a much better mars mission. I think the view of mars or bust asap asap comes from a lack of understanding of how big the technical leap is from doing a moon to doing a mars mission.
On the other hand Artemis’ 2 year lag between missions is just about right for optimal windows to mars. /s
Advancements in space can advance humanity on Earth. Like practical solar panels were first created for a satellite. There are experiments that need to be done in low G or zero G like for material science, a permanent moon base could accelerate those advancements. Also experiments on bio printing living cells have been done on the ISS, zero G makes it easier to scaffold the cells into a structure. Maybe a moon base makes it easier to grow organs on an industrial scale.
same, i think thats why its not interesting, the WHITE house has created so many distractions that the nasa isnt even that noticable, just a temporarly headlines that would be instantly forgotten in a few days.
I feel oddly similar. I think it's that I can't cheer for America.
We should have gone to mars by now, but all the funds went to child raping fascists and bombs apparently
i dont think we are technologically there to get to the mars even with money, probably a few more decades of funding and research.
Yep. But that's the thing, we could've been there if we didn't spend the resources necessary for it on stupid things the last ~5 decades.
that is true, largely everyone forgot about space exploration, and focused on WAR economy instead.
We can with enough money. We already established we can build stuff in orbit and send stuff to orbit. All you need to get to mars is a larger rocket. So assemble it in space and go to mars. It's the same problem of going to the moon just with more delta v.
It’s a lot more than that, starting with transit time - take a few week lunar mission and scale it up to years
I love space and discovery. I also dont super care about this because what is even the point of it? We did a fly around of a rock in our backyard we know super well already. Give me more JWST, not this
Yeah, but the point is to test the technology which will eventually get people back onto the moon, set up permanent off-Earth habitation, etc. Which in turn will/could be part of future steps for further-reaching exploration. I still think it has value as a building block.
But we already had the technology to get to the moon, take pictures, and get off it. Nothing against the crew, im glad they got this once in a life experience, but theres nothing new to this.
We had it, yes, but we lost it - I believe that many of the technical plans from Apollo have been lost over the years, so some of this is pretty much reinventing the wheel to get us back to where we were before.
Not so much lost but, its an entirely new tech stack. So any solutions we might have had in the past are no longer appropriate solutions.
What part of reinventing the wheel is slashing NASA's budget to shreds? This is just the last public test flight before space is walled off as a playground for the rich. They'll get their tourist flights and luxury colonies and nice vacations from the boiling toxic hell they turned earth into.
If you think any resources are going to trickle down to us earth peasants, I've got a moon base to sell you.
Thats a weird take.
Literally everything that just went to the moon and back is "new".
Yes, we have been to the moon before but that doesn't mean that all the cool stuff we just did is not an amazing achievement.
They’re testing entirely new everything. Just because it’s the same shape as Apollo doesn’t mean there’s anything in common
Are you not excited by the high resolution pictures sent while they were still out there ? Apollo would have brought back film to be developed on earth?
120Mb laser data link!!!!!!
Yeah I've been thinking maybe this is it -- it's still technically impressive and I have nothing but admiration for the teams who have pored their sweat and tears into making sure it's safe and reliable, but it's kind of a 'so what?' moment.
Telescopes and geology have always been the cool part of space, not that humans are in it.
No one's been on this spacecraft design while it's in space before, and it's got some kinks that need to be worked out (like the issues with the toilet); it's a shakedown flight to figure out what goes wrong when people are actually on board. That's not really all that sexy compared to a moon landing, but testing your support systems in practice really needs to happen before you do more ambitious things with the craft.
If they landed and did stuff that was more complex than we can send robots to do it would have been pretty awesome!
This flyby is a necessary precursor to landing and doing those cool things.
They need to take tiny incremental steps because the cost of a fuckup is so great.
If the public has to watch someone expire in space due to a malfunction the existing candle flame of support for these endeavours would be snuffed out.
With only two seconds of ping they can work from Earth with robots. Sending people is just a dick contest.
Yep, I am definitely more excited by space science news. I'd say I'm just more mature now and interested in more grounded "pure" science, but it wasn't too long ago that I was giggling like an idiot as we watched the 2 falcon heavy boosters landing back on their dual pads at KSC, so I don't think it's entirely just a loss of child-like wonder (though it's wearing thin these days, gotta admit).
It's impressive in the sense that it's the second time they launched a mostly clean sheet heavy-lift rocket. It took spaceX dozens of exploding rockets before they could even think about putting humans on one. Just getting something that insanely complex working the first time is kind of incredible, and I say this as an engineer who works on much simpler things that almost never work perfectly the first time.
for me, it’s the fact that it’s being used as a political tool by the usa to broadcast their prowess, that it’s being presented as a hopeful look in the future all the while the country running this is bombing and murdering hundreds of thousands, and that the companies benefitting from artemis’s publicity are mostly "defense" contractors like spacex and lockheed-martin, aka again the same people doing all the genocide
it’s hard to feel excited about it even tho there is plenty of cool science being done, that cool science stands on a mountain of tragedy and horrors
Could the same thing be said about the Apollo program in the 60's?
Factually, sure, but emotionally, not even close.
for me its not only the glacier pace of progress.. its also the lack of scientific motivation.
this didnt happen for science... its a political tool
The Apollo program was also a political tool, but it was astounding (not that I know first-hand, just hearing what my folks have said, and even they were fairly young at the time). Artemis doesn't have the same caché, I guess.
fair.. i grew up with the shuttle.. we were constantly reminded about the science
even that sucked due to the politics... as i would later find out the shuttle was stupidly inefficient but profitable for some
And don't forget that a big part of the shuttle sucking was caused by the military who forced nasa to make major design changes so that the shuttle could fulfill military tasks. Tasks which the shuttle never even wound up being used for because the military simply created their own separate rockets to do those tasks.
There are scientific targets and experiments being run
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis-ii-science/
100% there is a big political component to the effort, but there are also data that we can't get without getting farther from Earth
I don't care about it because it's a NASA mission and I've noticed that anything American these days makes me nauseous.
Call me anything you like, I don't care, this is how o feel after years of america bullshit and decades of more murrica bullshit with their preprogrammed exceptionalism.
I look down upon them, I pity them at best
And then there is something as great as this and I just can help but feel like it's tainted somehow. I know it's an international collaboration, but still, the smell somehow remains
I'm sorry, but fuck, so much misery and death and suffering has been brought to the world by the US for so long already... Trump is just the next iteration taking this place to its natural conclusion. Of course trump is corrupt, the country has been through and through corrupt for decades. This is just a typical self absorbed American grabbing the chance geven to get me myself and I to the top.
So yeah, mixed feelings at best.
I feel the same apathetic "whatever" response. I love rockets. I love space. I struggle to care about this.
The program is almost 2 decades late and using recycled technology. It is literally using spare parts from the shuttle. I don't believe it will ever actually get to the boots on the ground phase. I am actually surprised they made it to this mission. After all the boondoggle from Boeing I really thought it would die a quiet death somewhere out of sight.
Not only do they have technical hurdles, we have seen normally safe agencies become political battle grounds. We see science becoming less and less important at every level of society. We are living through Idiocracy and they still act like we are the same country that went to the moon the last time.
If we see people on the moon in our lifetime I don't believe they will arrive on a NASA mission.
I don't care because it doesn't seem like a genuine mission to prove something. It feels like a purely political stunt. At least with the original mission, it was breaking a frontier on top of trying ot show off to Russia during the Cold War, but this time it's only the US flexing as mandated by the Orangegutan in Charge because he can and it feels icky.
His name is forever going to be associated with this too. Tainted like our lives have been with his toxicity forever
My feelings exactly. This was not politics leveraged to advance science. This was science abused to advance politics.
In all honesty at this stage it's not that exciting. They're hyping up people going further from the earth than ever before, which is technically true, but astronauts have orbited the moon before just not quite as far in absolute distance.
So this is mostly doing something done before in the 70s. Rocket launches, grainy images of the moon from close up, photos of earth from near the moon and astronauts floating in zero G isn't new.
I don't blame you for not getting excited to watch long videos where not a lot happens very slowly, or reading press coverage which is brutally honest largely fluff.
The ultimate goal is exciting, but that doesn't mean every step on the way is exciting. I suspect the first moon landing will be of more interest, then the next one will not be, even though the landings are a stepping stone to Mars.
This ^ I get it, the images we are getting back ARE stunning, but is there anything about this mission that demanded a manned spaceflight? Couldn't we/didn't we already do the same thing remotely with the other planets?
I'm glad we're getting back to it, and I'm happy to see anything other "We're sending mice up on the space shuttle... AGAIN!"
But even Artemis IV where they are planning a moon landing has been done.
Let me know when the first colony is formed, then I can get excited.
It will only be open to billionaires. Or to people there to make money for billionaires. That's why I'm not excited.
Compulsory moon colony for billionaires would be great thanks.
Yes, a lot actually.
You don't just send astronauts into space for a photo op. You pair the photo op with critical testing of systems required to support the next iterations of the mission.
You don’t just jump right to the final goal, there are many steps to get there. This was one of them
The many steps were planned and completed 50 years ago, we just forgot.
For me, I just don’t see it as the step towards a bright future that it cone was.
So we reinvigorate the world’s interest in space missions, then what? Every iota of evidence from our own planet tells us that businesses are going to own the moon, mars, and beyond. Wayland-Yutani is more likely than The Federation.
I just can’t get excited about another frontier for Musk and Bezos to rub their stanky dicks all over.
I was far more excited to see the solar panels in Syria.
We can't even wipe our own asses without jihading or reinstating a cool new kind of slavery with extra steps. What are we going to do with a new frontier?
I'm betting a corporate slavery jihad of environmental degradation.
I mean, that tracks historically
The Expanse sheds one I believe to be a plausible picture of our future, although it seems optimistic on some fronts.
I disagree.
Its slightly firmer science than star trek, but it still makes a lot of license IMO.
I dont think the cost of sending humans to Mars or to do asteroid mining will ever be justified. Bots, and not humanoid ones will explore the frontier of space, and collect the minerals we need.
If you think about all the stuff humans need to survive for any length of time it just doesn't make any sense to send a human.
This is why the moon is critical. Going to mars or wherever will be insanely expensive compared to the little moon trip. To make it at all affordable, you don’t just need one of the new reusable launch vehicles but you need to use local resources as much as possible. Let’s prove our ice mining and habitat construction
Consider spending tens of billions of dollars just sending water to mars, and hope you don’t screw up the schedule when an “emergency” resupply is nine months. Same for air. And food. So much more for fuel. No one is going to spend that. But if you can use local resources for fuel, water, air, radiation shielding, and grow at least some of your own food, you’re more resilient and much much cheaper.
The mining isn’t likely to be useful for sending anything back to earth - way too expensive. Space mining is all about making space affordable, and we’re talking about really fundamental things to mine.
I agree that moon stuff is a critical first step to doing anything in space, but my point is that I don't think sending humans will ever be the best way to do anything.
Bots are just so cheap and effective and disposable by comparison.
How many decades more research and development before we can safely establish a permanent base on mars, and in that time how much more effective and reliable and deployable will bots become?
Eventually the calculation will be: we can afford to do a manned return trip to Mars, or we can afford to solve cold fusion by doing whatever thing with a bot, or something similarly amazing.
idk maybe you're right, we'll see if we both live long enough to find out...
We have so much problems down here on Earth that Artemis seems like a smokescreen. I see no way it could benefit humanity.
One of the ways it could benefit humanity is to offload the destruction of our environment in pursuit of rare earth metals, natural gases, to a moon or planet where the environment does not support life.
Strip mining and fracking are actively and rapidly destroying our planet. Stopping those activities here would be a massive improvement to our chances of survival on Earth into the future.
Oh asteroid mining with slow electric engines would offload SOOOOOO much emissions and pollution. Granted we would have to build some sort of space elevator or platform which would be a global effort and cost hundreds of trillions in every stage. But once the main aspects were done, it would be very efficient.
Also it turns out asteroids are conveniently formed in layers like an onion. All the work of pulling veins of ore out of ground and rock is unnecessary, because the heavier elements are further towards the center of these much MUCH Smaller bodies than planets, and the lighter elements on on top. It would make it far far easier to find and harvest these minerals and resources than it is now. As most people are aware, rare earth minerals aren't actually rare, they're just so scarcely spread out over our crust.
All the minerals and resources we want that are actually from Earth's formation are hundreds of miles below the surface, most likely in molten form in the mantle, because of how cosmic body formation works with density and gravity. The resources we are extracting were probably almost all deposited by asteroid, meoterite, and comet strikes, that also probably brought our oceans.
All this to say, these asteroid did the same thing Earth did, pulled their heavy materials to their cores, but these are much easier to crack and process than an entire planet. We don't need to go all Ishimura from Dead Space with planet cracking, when we can just crack open tiny to small sized asteroids and harvest those valuable materials much more readily, in FAR FAR higher quantity than on Earth's surface, and with very little environmental impact.
That would be givin a lifeline to an already unsustainable and destructive system.
So... we need resources. Like if we go back to preindustrial society, hundreds of millions die, from diseases and famine and disability and a whole onslaught of issues. We are currently fucking over our planet to scrape the remnant of asteroid impacts to make the tools and systems we use. Now, are a bunch of those unnecessary, of course, and can they probably be done better, yes. But until we have Star Trek style replicators or hard light technology, we will need a decent amount of resources to continue existing. And I don't know about you, but asteroid mining seems a LOT more attainable and within the nearish future timespan than replicators or hard light.
No, we need different system. We already have enough resources to provide every human being on Earth with decent life. With late capitalism whole universe would not be enough, because its greed is insatiable. So, we'll add exploitation of Moon to exploitation of Earth.
Oh I meant we use this technology in collectivist ways, not private corporations mining. Truly, to build that initial space elevator or space dock, I can't imagine it outside of a star trek like Earth. We would have to all work together for this and for many other projects which would be cool to accomplish
In today's climate I would rather fear militarization of Moon. i also remember that as a kid I have heard that we were to have first Moon base about 25 years ago. The older I get, the more favourably I think about degrowth, so I am rather for utilizing present resources, instead of expanding the pool, because that would only expand expoitation.
There are an endless number of problems here on earth. However while we can make a difference, establish a trend, we can never fix them. It’s a losing battle. We fix at least as many problems by improving technology, civilization.
Let’s take refrigerators. There are way too many people without adequate food and there always will be. We can fix the excesses, we can set a trend but we will never end hunger. However technology advances, overall societies become wealthier, and now at least in developed countries almost everyone has access to refrigeration. Trying to help the hungry doesn’t get us there, shifting the whole society forward does.
We may not have concrete ideas how Artemis can shift society forward but in general big technology challenges do
Most of Earth problems have very little to do with technology and a lot to do with political and economical systems. And even it we had a Zeus program going straight to Jupiter would make noe difference.
But doesn’t that argue against your earlier point? If our myriad of earthly problems are generally political and economic system, then Artemis does not take away from addressing them.
But it does not feel like it is important. For me it's like solving problems of 10th urgency insead of the most important ones.
Because you can see it for the distraction that it is. In a vacuum it is a wonderful or at least interesting and significant thing but it is also clear that it's just a PR stunt by the US government.
That's not to belittle the training, dedication, preparation, and everything else that was done by all of the people around adjacent to or even inside the rocket. The indictment is not on them.
I think actually watching some of the video would help with that. I watched some video of events while they were up there, what they were feeling and how much they obviously cared about each other and what they were doing.
Tonight I watched the splashdown and felt unexpectedly emotional about it, not sure whether it was contemplating the enormity of the achievement, or the display of the good and smart and positive side of humans working together to do something big again instead of the constant drumbeat of destruction, or maybe just that we didn't have yet another disaster.
I was also uninterested until seeing the astronauts out there. I saw a comment that sums it up: "turns out, I'm not tired of space. I'm tired of Musk and Bezos and corporate bullshit in space."
I'm still bummed that the mission was reduced to a photographic flyby without any meaningful interaction. There's nothing especially triumphant about this trip as it was already known to be achievable. That makes me assume there's something hidden, such as secret probes, positive PR for the US government in the most heinous of times, more cover up for the epstein files, slapping the orange name on yet more activities despite robbing the NASA budget, etc.
But, for an hour or two spread across the last few days, it was still beautiful seeing 4 humans being genuine people. They even got the "end of vacation" sad feeling 24 hours before return. I can't decry the loss of NASA funding and be disinterested in this. I have to beleive this mission will inspire the next generation there's still something valuable in bigger projects with cooperation and scientific endeavors. I don't think we'll match the power of the first lunar landing anytime soon, but from the Apollo and Shuttles to now, we've just been subjected to corporate spaceflight and dick swinging competitions about whose craft docks more often. For just one more time, we don't have a billionaire's name visibly attached.
It's been so long since we did this that it's all new people and newer technology now (although unfathomably, they used Microsoft products on a critical mission!?! but I digress). So before attempting to land on the moon, they still have to do the preliminary missions to test all the systems and work out any bugs--and they found some. So this was important, and a success.
This is just the start of the Artemis program, so the flyby was just testing things and a few science missions flying past the moon farther than we have before. Future Artemis flights will land and stay on the moon for longer.
I mean it's cool and I love space exploration, but at the same time, it's something that has been done a while ago already, so it's not that impressive. Now if they went around Mars or did something nobody did before, that would be something else. As it is it seems a bit superfluous to the phillistine that I am. I actually don't know what the point of the mission was, I don't think major media mentioned it (or I missed it).
I think I read that the mission goals included preparing for the actual moon landing in future missions
it would be surprising if they can even get to the moons. we are just not technologically there yet. space exploration kinda took a backseat after the first few times, for like decades, so people lost interest eventually.
Honestly I don't even think I would care if they had landed. If they were setting up some sort of base I'd be into it -- mostly to geek out over the new tech and techniques that would have to be developed for construction, environmental control, etc. But for just boots on the ground? Still kinda meh.
I'd be excited for boots on Mars, but again maybe for the same reasons - just to get people there and back would require an almost unthinkable (today) level of development and dedication of resources.
But they are setting up a base, or they’re claiming to. This is exactly why I’m excited about it.
Assuming politics doesn’t interfere again, I’m expecting a permanent or semipermanent presence and all sort of new stuff
Whitey On The Moon by Gil Scott-Heron comes to mind. Planet is burning and they're sending money to space.
Do you feel science and tech is becoming tainted? Its no longer exciting. Its becoming a bane of existence. I don't think its a direct link, but its a tenuous link.
A step forward for ma...whilst back here they are killing many many man. It leaves a sour taste.
It doesn't help that a lot of people in power seem to take issue with objective realities.
Well Apollo was at the height of the Cold War and Vietnam’s. It was much more politically motivated.
I do have to admit to being ambivalent about trying to call this a race with China. That’s pretty bogus. However if it gets us moving I’m ok with it
OP is Neo at dinner wondering why his steak isn't fulfilling.
I don't think it's all that hot what's being done in contrast to what has already been achieved decades ago.
So, once around the moon, Hm.
On the other hand, stuff others already said. There's so much stuff going in, imo the effort could be used in other places.
Did you hear about that boat that recently made it to Antarctica? Yeah, me neither.
Imagine modern tech in the hands of 80's people.
"TF you mean 5.4 Gigaherz, 768 MB RAM, 600 AH battery storage!?"
They would string together something godly.
I think you’re asking a question only you can answer
Same. Part of it for me, I think, is that is an enormous expenditure that goes mostly to Elmo. The Apollo missions were more in-house, with lots of cool innovations, and it feels like the privatization of a great and inspiring heritage.
Nothing on that flight was from SpaceX
Future ones will be, future money will be largely SpaceX, because if they get starship to work it promises to be much much cheaper than anything else
this song describes perfectly why I couldn't give a fuck about space colonization anymore.
after covid, Ukraine, Palestine, Iran, Sudan, etc. and the sheer number of genocides the governments around the globe managed to squeeze in in just a short 6 year period, I stopped caring about the progress and democracy fetish they're trying to force feed us.
if we wanna make the world a better place, we gotta stop relying on them. i know now they're gonna use those space launches to perfect their genocidal weapons, that's why I could enjoy NASA before I knew the military industrial complex
I thought that before i read your post.
I don’t like it way Elon Musk fans gush over everything Space X does… but I am excited that even with an administration and voter base that are clearly hostile to science, we can still DO science. So even though it’s not what I’d rather them do, they’re still doing science.
This system of things, all over the world, is falling apart. Going to space might be likened to a desperate cry for sanity. But a single cry of a baby in an ocean of crying individuals all over the world is not something given much attention.
It's eclipsed (no pun intended) by the horrors of war, disease, and conservatism. It's hard to be excited about the moon when there's measles outbreaks and at least one genocide.
For me it's the pace. I know it's not that simple, but we've been to the moon already. The first unmanned Artemis mission was almost 4 years ago, and now this one, and the next one - which will include landing on the moon...again...won't be for another 2 years at least. We won't even begin to build a base until the 2030s.
Even the moon base is just a "stepping stone" to Mars, and we already know that long-term colonization on Mars is unrealistic, given current tech. We don't yet know how to even survive on Mars (or the moon, for that matter) for more than a few days.
And even if we solve these problems...then what? We also know that even if we figure out how to keep a few people alive for just a few years on Mars, there's just no reason to try to keep a large number of people on Mars. It's just too damn hostile.
I don't know. I agree that this doesn't have the same romantic feeling of awe and discovery and exploration that I feel like I'm "supposed to" have.
I also don’t see how “colony” happens, but I do see “base” on mars as both something we could afford and something worth doing.
Making it feasible mostly depends on the boring innovations of figuring out how to use local resources.
Personally, for me, I've paid attention to it some, but not followed it closely. I think a lot of it is just that I understand it so well and have seen it all before. I love KSP (and KSA is looking great!), and have played it with the real solar system mods. The launch looks better than the game, but everything after the game does better. It can look better (their renders are surprisingly shit still), and I can actually control it.
I love space information and technology, but this is just one more step in it. I can't follow everything. It's great that it's happening, but there's also a ton more research being done that I don't even know about. This, while impressive and good, isn't something new.
I watched the launch after it happened at 2x speed and saw some parts of the descent. My phone wallpaper has been set t9 pictures they took. I'm just not that interested in following it live. I know what to expect, and I'll hear about it if anything unexpected happens.
It's because it's not a sexy mission. The astronauts never leave the ship, they're not landing anywhere, they're not doing anything that hasn't been done before, and the trip is only precursor for the cool stuff that's yet to come. Nobody remembers the space missions before the first moon landing, and nobody will remember this either.
The explicit goal of this mission is to not just to send people back to the moon, but to actually set up a base there, and that's exciting stuff. When there is an actual moon base and scientists can travel back and forth from earth to it, the entire world will focus on it because that's never been done before.
I kinda felt the same way tbh, I love space stuff so usually I would be super exited about it, and maybe following it in real time, specially taking into account the budget cuts that NASA has been getting over the previous decades, I should be hopeful for the start of a new age of (manned) space exploration, but given the current political climate I can't ignore that the whole thing ends up being a demonstration of power by the USA first and a scientific mission second.
Thing is, this has always been the case since the very first space missions, it's nothing new that governments only finance space programs for ulterior motives. Maybe I've become too cynical to be able to separate stuff from their political context.
It boils down to this: Going to the moon in the 60's was political, though a massive technical feat.
Since then we've figured out how to send robots to fucking Mars to do the science we want to do, for a fraction of the cost (and none of the risk) of sending humans.
Artemis just isn't where we should be spending money, never mind the political bullshit surrounding it, and the typical government vendors getting their hands in the cookie jar like they did for Apollo (looking at you, Boeing).
And I say all this as someone fascinated by Apollo, and as excited as anyone else by the prospect of humans on the moon. I just no longer see the cost/benefit of humans vs automation there.
We have remote rovers in the sea and on Mars. For the moon surely we could send all sorts of devices to do science there. It's faster to reach, we have near real-time comms, it has a greater solar exposure so power is less of a problem. So where are those rovers?
We don't have them because they would expose the pointlessness of sending humans.
The warcry of a capitalist. It's the justification for ending park services, museums, or anything that isn't specifically generating a porfit.
Eh, yes you're right but seriously what are we gaining from this mission? As far as I've heard there's nothing really new that were gaining from it, just... Because?
To the ops point, there are a multitude of more beneficial projects that money could have gone toward instead in the same realm.
Well, I guess that depends on what you define as an achievement.
In terms of skills and expertise there's only a handful living people with lunar experience and all of them are 60+ years old. It's important to pass these skills down from person to person as training manuals and videos aren't the same as an actual person passing on this wisdom. This one shouldn't really need any explanation.
For dick-measuring newspaper headlines, we did just send some humans farther into space than we ever have before. That's a tangible thing that's measurable; anyone can understand it.
For raw, practical science, somone who's a bigger nerd than me will have to tag in for that. What I do know and understand is we're launching more advanced technology with a ship that's both smaller in size with more interior space. We've got measurements of the astronauts in deep space and data on the far side of the moon. Regular people arguing over the importance of this data isn't going to produce anything conclusive.
Most importantly we tested all new everything and it worked!
What are you blathering about?
You are too focused on the dollar amount.
I feel happy for everyone taking joy in this moment. I don't feel much of anything for it though. It's wildly neutral.
feeling the same. there's so much shit in the world that the Artemis mission is barely noticeable.
I think i understand why you feel that way, it happens to me constantly. Since there is already so much hype about this, you don't need to hype it as well. Enough hype already.
Basically, there should always be attention on every launch, but it's not necessary that everybody obsesses over every launch. Only that somebody does. Since so many eyes are watching this mission already, you don't feel any need to spend your time on it as well.
I literally don’t even want to watch Project Hail Mary.
I think of all those space movies where the Earth has to do something together. Where it cuts to listeners in Paris, Beijing, Zimbabwe, New York, and Moscow before going back to some Mission Control center saying “We’re counting on you.”
Then I realize, in reality, there would be American cultists actively fighting any kind of effort to save the world, or run a giant “DEI WILL DOOM US” campaign because one of the astronaut crew is part Asian.
I want these stupid fanciful astronauts to see that we actively don’t have the circumstances to create these wonderful worldwide moments of joy anymore because of the overwhelming levels of sick hatred they’ve created in bankrupting our world of empathy and flooding it with religious propaganda.
The people personally funding rockets could have cured cancer everywhere with their savings. I honestly think if a lethal meteor was headed for the Earth, they’d want to live, but they’d invest everything into trying to save themselves rather than trying to save everyone.
Project Hail Mary doesn't do that, from what I recall. I think it's just the US government/military collecting a bunch of scientists. Maybe it's cut from the adaptation. The mission has a lengthy timeline of decades while the existential threat is already harming the planet. It doesn't really paint the Earth in any kind of dreamy co-op light from what I recall.
It's a beautiful movie. I like hard sci-fi drama. My SO does not. We both enjoyed it as it split the difference. It has some beautiful visuals along the way. It's far from "men being dicks in space" like Ad Astra and it doesn't do the Armageddon thing with the global livestream. I'm not saying you have to watch it, but it's just a nice, well done movie worth the time IMO.
You're criticizing NASA, a public entity, as if they are in the same club as the billionaires making phallus-shaped rockets and putting pop stars into space. They're not the same.
Also, the Artemis Program's entire budget so far, over the span of ~ a decade is 93 billion. The US spends 997 billion on its war machine every single year.
Maybe they could bomb, shoot, or invade 10% less in the future and give that money to support those in need?
I actually wasn’t even trying to criticize NASA. “The people personally funding rockets” refers to private companies like SpaceX.
My only criticism to NASA isn’t really on their funding, but on their general goals of spreading joy through their accomplishments; of having Hollywood movies where we see the whole world unite around a shared cause.
The sad reality is, that reality could be as simple as “our planet doesn’t blow up” and we’d have some people remark “MIGHT BE WORTH IT TO KILL THOSE EVIL LIB’RULS” or “Finally, we achieved Armageddon! And here I thought we needed to purge the West Bank first! Where’s Jesus and the risen army?”
If you do go looking at stuff, don't check the comments.
This mission has convinced me that half of America has a room temperature IQ
I've pondered my own lack of interest and I think it comes down to the Artemis program's design being such a shitshow. Sure, if you throw enough brute force budget and a long enough time you can get astronauts back to the Moon. But they're doing it in such a poor manner that I doubt anything will come of it long-term. It's going to be another unsustainable flags-and-foot-prints stunt.
Some of the recent changes hint at NASA maybe finally getting their act together, but I'll believe it when I see it - NASA doesn't actually call the shots here. It's a political program.
That's an interesting point. There's zero engineering elegance on display here, and while I'm sure there are some cool, new things going on under-the-hood, it mostly looks like every other big rocket we've launched in the last 60 years, and not half as cool as the (admittedly stupid) Shuttle. And the Shuttle did at least have a lot of clever engineering going on to compensate for the (again, stupid) design choices that were driven by so many different and conflicting potential mission profiles.
I remember when I was in China, didn't even have internet.
My parents bought me a children's book about planets and stuff... I still remember it called 十万个为什么 (Literally: 100 Thousand Whys)
I was so intrigued.
I remember I had not much things to read and I kept reading that over and over again. I remember still having it when I was in 2nd grade in the US... like that's my last "artifact" of my pre-US life...
I remember just putting it in my bookbag and bringing it to school cuz... idk why... maybe I just felt nostalgic about it and thought it'd be cool to bring a book nobody else in the school would be able to read... sort of like a special ancient text made for me xD
Sadly the binding on that book is garbage and it fell apart and I no longer have that book...
(I don't remember NASA being mentioned btw)
Later I remember constantly googling space stuff once we had internet access at home...
I think its:
Childhood... like space is a big concept... so it feels like this "big thing" and I get obsessed about it... like many kids probably do. You go from being in a tiny apartment at home to suddenly knowing about very big empty space... Mind Blowing...
Humanity already been on the moon... meh... not that exciting... especially not after a few decades and interests fade... like omg someone sailed across the ocean... boo boring... already done...
They aren't doing anything new, we have already been around the moon.
My personal opinion of it is that it was either a reaffirmation of the tech need to do it, in which case its kinda sad that we haven't progressed beyond that for the last 50 years. The other idea I have of it is that it was the simplest and fastest way to get eyes on the dark side of the moon to verify or discount the notion of China building a base there
Nah, it's way easier to send a satellite to take a look.
It's impossible to secretly launch enough payloads to build a moonbase in the first place. Every launch has to pass through low earth orbit and rockets are shiny. There are too many eyes on the sky to go unnoticed. Even then, there'd be radio chatter between the Earth and Moon, and satellite redirection from the far side. You can encrypt radio signals, but they can't hide.
Fwiw the module is 50% larger by volume than Apollo and carries four people rather than three
Also: computers, and a 120Mb/s laser link to earth!
And Microsoft Outlook … LoL
same here, i dont care about it all, while its interesting it finally happened, its not really exciting news, especially with so much other things going on, which suspiciously happening a the same time to direct attention away , the mission redirecting attention away from more important news.
Honestly, I thought for sure we would have had a permanent moon base by now. Something minimal but permanent and manned like the Space Station is. How foolish of me.
So much problems to get mad about. Don't have time to be happy for some people so far away. We are try to survive everday.
Here are the reason.
Whitey On the Moon
Because their is so many crisies going on at once that all of the discussion about what makes it cool has been drowned out for years. It's also a little bit of a catch-up to what we ought to have been instead of some of this bullshit
While I share some, if not most, of your disinterest, it's probably worth pointing out that while "we" had a Saturn V rocket system and Apollo space program that did, at least superficially the same as Artemis so far, we could not actually repeat a Saturn V launch today, as-in we lost many of those skills and associated experience.
In many ways, Artemis is essentially getting back to where we left off in 1973 with the intention of eclipsing it, but the ongoing NASA budget cuts being perpetrated by the current regime are in my opinion going to curtail the program before too long.
If I recall correctly, after Apollo 11, the TV audiences dwindled for the rest of the program, with a brief spike for Apollo 13, so perhaps there's an aspect of that to consider.
For me the disappointment was triggered by the poor camera handling during launch, the view of backpacks, food and plushies surrounding CAPCOM at Mission Control, the broken toilet debacle and the heat shield obfuscation, all of which made this less leading edge science and more of a shitshow.
I hope the astronauts land safety in a couple of hours, but I won't be watching for days like I did for the first Shuttle launch in 1981.
to me at least and I believe many other people too, space travel seamed like an impossible magical fantasy as kids. it was fascinating and opened the door for imagination. as we became older and more aware and also as the world around us changed, like most things it became less magical and less impossible. additionally most of us especially in this modern political environment most of had unintentionally realigned their priorities. space travel sounded less utopian and magical and more dystopian and bad prioritization. also people like elon musk has just ruined it for an entire generation. I used to admire the man as a kid now everything he is involved in is just meaningless political tools and corporational greed to me.
seeing how bleak humanity's future is and how corrupt and ruined the planet became suddenly the idea of someone going to a rock in space became less important. it also didn't help that this event coincides with the current war in iran and gaza and the trump administration. as someone from the middle east, it felt eerie seeing the same flag that represents tyranny and murder to also represent scientific advancement and human achievement.
Just think how close those astronauts were to returning to a world at nuclear war
It feels so wrong that instead of this being a momentous occasion, it feels like a distraction.
There's a certain strain of thought that runs through my mind sometimes, that space is just too big and too empty to really be worth going into. Like the moon and Mars, maybe a couple other in-system planets, are the only things close enough for realistic human trips in lifetimes. And the trips so far have shown us that yes, those are just big balls of monotonous dirt. You ever kinda landed in that state of mind?
In spite of all that, I do still get excited about it, and really enjoyed following Artemis. Excited to see us (maybe, hopefully) land on the moon again soon. It's remarkable that humans are able to rise to that challenge, and I hope we don't ever entirely stop.
I find it pointless. We need to think about real sustainable progress in space but you just have to look at the earth to see how we are about sustainability. I firmly believe we have to work on sourcing space resources from space and that is what we should be most workin on. I mean if you look at it reusable rockets are the most impactful thing to happen to our space endeavours in this millenium and it was due to doing one thing. Being more sustainable.
I cared a little bit. Then the astronauts started blathering about the bible.
Christofascist nation doing Christian things. Not surprised.
We have other problems, like taxing the rich ![email protected] . Who cares if we see the far side of the moon if we struggle paying the rent?
it would be more notable if another country went to moon instead of the US, although not interesting still. moon is OLD NEWS sadly and coming out at the same time as other stuff on earth.
You are not alone. What a waste of resources.
I'm just glad the thing didn't explode on launch or come flying apart on reentry.
NASA's problem is that their goals get derailed every time the executive changes hands, so they serve no strategic purpose. The moonbase idea is idiotic. Getting bots out to explore asteroids for potential mining is not. NASA should be building the infrastructure for that.
Isn't one of this missions main goals testing new tech and theories to move us towards exactly what you are asking for?
They could have done this forty years ago. And a moonbase is a waste of money and time. And it's all moot because Trump just nuked another $14B off NASA's budget anyway.
The second-best time is now though
I wouldn't say a moon base is idiotic on its own. It seems the next logical step in space exploration after a space station like the ISS to me. But as someone who also didn't really follow the mission: I think this is because at the same time our home (i.e. earth) has such massive problems that take up all the attention. I'm sure at boring times I would have followed that mission very closely...
I guess because it's not that special.
So basically it gives life aid to capitalism and will let us destroy planet some more. Even worse.
I’m on the other side, wondering where everyone is
We’re bogged down in so much misery, so much self-destructive behavior, so many exploiters and scams, so many people in desperate circumstances …. But Artemis (and similar) is meeting a challenge, doing the impossible, setting a vision of a greater humanity, shifting civilization forward. It’s a reason to live, to hope, to be optimistic, and probably benefits even the most desperate by shifting society forward.
Me to
But i know why :
I don't want to support this anymore, i grow up 🤷♀️
You too
Funny that you feel this way, because I thought about posting a similar and yet almost opposite post to [email protected]. I think it gets too much attention compared to other missions.
I think the Artemis mission isn't completely useless and even regardless of Lunar economy and nostalgic motivation, there are some benefits, sure. But all of this over-sensationalized exposure with more emphasis on the USA is the reality check that we're slowly resetting to a space race. I always thought that it was a beautiful story that what started as competition turned into the biggest evidence of our united efforts. And while I don't think collaborations will end, I fear that they will turn into alliances and we are back to competition.