We have so much problems down here on Earth that Artemis seems like a smokescreen. I see no way it could benefit humanity.
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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 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?”
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.
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.
My feelings exactly. This was not politics leveraged to advance science. This was science abused to advance politics.
His name is forever going to be associated with this too. Tainted like our lives have been with his toxicity forever
You already know the answer, I think. It's because they didn't land.
Orbiting the moon - super cool. Seeing new stuff from far side - super cool. Emotional investment in something we've more or less done before? Well....
Which is actually a damn shame, but brains are funny like that. The entirety of human progress (and hubris) is down to chasing the next dopamine hit - and that probably includes the original moon shot.
Artemis is asking you to feel the same thing twice. Your lizard brain isn't stupid - it's just honest and lazy. If novelty is the drug, then this isn't a new drug. It's a carefully rebranded rerun with better CGI and a press kit. Plus, you've probably had a lot of other proxy hits to the ol' reward center so that something as big as "humans in a tin can fly around the moon" just registers as "meh - I've seen better on For All Mankind".
And I hate that for us.
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.
We've become so...jaded. I remember flying home from Japan, watching movies on my Ipad and dicking around on the net via inflight wifi. Literally flying over the ocean, in a chair, in the sky, with a supercomputer the size of a book, using invisible waves to communicate instantaneously across the globe.
Yawn.
Our calibration for extraordinary is out of whack. That's the issue, I think.
I guess because it's not that special.
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.
You are not alone. What a waste of resources.
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.
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.
Me to
But i know why :
I don't want to support this anymore, i grow up 🤷♀️
You too
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.
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.
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.
It's been overshadowed by other current events. Quite a shame, really
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.
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
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
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'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.