("Hey, kids! We're going to Disneyland! We're going to drive all the way around it before we head home!")
Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. In fact, we have had humans surviving in space for decades now. It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much.
But more than that: we have much more important problems to solve, starting with our survival. Sure, sending robots to Mars is interesting, for science. Sending people to Mars is useless. Hoping to become an "interplanetary species" is preposterous. Thinking that Mars is "just a next step, but we'll go further" is absolutely insane.
Life is literally, measurably dying on Earth (the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs). We have a huge energy problem, and more and more global instability.
Sure, watching four humans happily travelling to the Moon in a spaceship that literally does not need them is fun, like watching the Superbowl. And like for the Superbowl, there are big fans for whom it is the most important event of the year. However, most people don't care. We're not in 1969 anymore, now it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life.
Plus, do you not have any other interests besides the state of the world? No interest in entertainment or sports or tech news at all? I doubt that if you’re on HN.
My bet is that you wouldn’t care even if the world was objectively better than ever. You’re just coming up with excuses for why you don’t care. It’s fine if you don’t care, but it’s certainly not because of the state of the world. Otherwise you wouldn’t have any interests at all, including HackerNews.
Just see how stoked people were about JWST
I do care, as in "it's really cool" and I wish I could do it, too. I grew up being passionate about Apollo and the ISS.
But then I realised that the ISS is extraordinarily expensive and really doesn't bring much (still I would love to go!).
Worse even: the more popular space programs get, the more likely it is that SpaceX and the likes succeed in commercialising space and polluting more and more while doing it.
And another thing I have realised is that other people passionate about human spaceflights usually either don't give a shit about the fact that we are destroying the conditions of our survival or don't understand how bad the situation is. Look at the comments here on this topic: when someone questions the fact that manned space missions are scientifically useful (nobody ever denies that they are super cool), they get downvoted very fast. Nobody ever engages in a constructive discussion of "why they may, actually, be useful", other than by saying "but look, a fraction of the money we put into space programs helped develop some things that we could have developed without the space program, but I want to believe that we may have not developed them or much slower".
I do have hobbies indeed, but they don't involve throwing away billions of taxpayer money.
They will start caring when it stops feeding them.
That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun.
Yes, we have been screwing up our planet. On that note alone, we should develop capabilities to access resources beyond our planet. We could have made that same argument before we had the capability of launching satellites ("why are we wasting resources sending something to space that can only beep while people are dying of hunger?"). Nowadays, they are crucial if we want to have a chance at saving what remains of our planet.
Moon missions may not give an immediate benefit, but we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time.
I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier.
Don't get me wrong: I would totally love to be in their shoes, I completely understand why they want to do it.
> Nowadays, they are crucial
This is the typical "we need to do it because it's hard, and we don't know what we will learn from it, and BTW there are things we developed for the space program that got into civilian use" argument.
But it is flawed. For one, we know a lot more today than we did in the 50s. It would be like saying "in the past, they thought that the Earth was flat, so who knows, maybe tomorrow we will realise that humans are capable of telekinesis". The truth is... "most likely not".
> we have always benefitted from scientific and technological advancements from space missions. I doubt it's going to be different this time.
Let's play a game: you're not allowed to read about it. Off the top of your head, what technological advancements did the different space programs bring? Gemini? Apollo? Soyuz? The space shuttle? Mir? The ISS? And if you manage to give more than one correct answer to that, do you genuinely believe that it wouldn't have been possible to develop that technology without the corresponding space program? I doubt it.
It's like saying that we needed to spend billions developing a race car in order to improve the stability of a skateboard. Technically, that is wrong, so the only argument I heard to defend the idea was something like "because brilliant people would be interested in developing a race car, but if it wasn't possible, instead of improving skateboards, they would be bureaucrats or financiers". Not very convincing.
> I'd certainly prefer countless more moon missions than a new aircraft carrier.
Agreed. But that's not a justification for spending billions sending humans in space for their own pleasure (and not without risk) and for the pleasure of all the nerds who enjoy working on that (and I count myself as part of those nerds).
A good example here is solar panels. They were invented before the space race, but for what, why do you need them on earth? We had cheap oil and fossil fuels, nobody cared about renewables. But for the first 50 years after they were invented satellites was what kept them alive, as it made sense to use that technology there. That gave them a real use case, which continued investment and development into them.
I doubt today we would have the same level of satellite technology today if the space race didn't happen, so it's unlikely we would have the same level of solar panels either.
I think you vastly underestimate the amount of work and money that have been put into photovoltaic panels outside the space programs.
Tang
In practice if those billions don't fund NASA programs they go into making some billionaires richer, Oracle laying off 30,000 people to fund data centers that will be obsolete by the time they are ready and similar stuff. Not a dime towards noble goals of humanity.
And to be fair, Artemis contributes to making some billionaires richer. Sending humans to space has always been a great PR stunt to convince the people that they should continue accepting that the taxpayer money gets used for space programs. Turns out that in 2026, space programs are more commercial and less about science. SpaceX is all about commercialising space and making... ahem... one billionaire richer.
No, "we" knew how to do it with 10x more money and people on the board, in a very unsafely manner. It was a few times muscle flex and thats why it stopped.
Making entire thing routine, cheap and safe is something else, and "we" don't know yet how to do that, or we would have at least few scientists constantly on the Moon.
It's a difference between running a marathon and dropping dead, and doing it all the time.
> we have ...[other]... problems
This kind of thinking is nonsensical. With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem, without them needing to point to other groups as doing imaginary problems. You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved. Life simply doesn't work that way, mythical man month explained it well why for one, and then, you can't know what unexplored spaces bring (maybe game changing discoveries).
> With so many people around, there can be arbitrary group of people working on any kind of problem
Sure. It's just that this particular group of people does it with taxpayer money, and it's measurably not very useful. That money could go to... I don't know... feed people? Just one example.
> You talk like unless everybody works on solving specific problem, its not going to get solved.
Actually, if you read a bit about the problem that I am mentioning (i.e. our survival), I think it's relatively clear that "solving it properly" is impossible (that ship has sailed), and "solving it badly" will require sacrifices from pretty much everybody alive. We literally need everybody to change their lifestyle in order to have more chances of survival. And even that will not prevent very bad things from happening to most people.
And I am saying that being pretty optimistic about it. A shortcut is simply "we're pretty much screwed". And if you don't realise it, it's probably because you don't really understand the problem.
Something that we know we could do. I think of it as the third act of a movie when the main character is pulling himself out of the gutter.
That being said, I agree with you. America has bigger, nearer problems to solve with that sort of money. It reminds me of Gil Scott-Heron's poem about how it feels to struggle while "whitey's on the moon". It was brilliantly used in First Man.
Fascinating. My naive perception of the extinction event was that it was relatively sudden, on a personal rather than geological timescale - decades or maybe generations. But it looks like it might be "_rapid extinction, perhaps over a period of less than 10,000 years_" [0]. Goes to show how unintuitive geological and evolutionary timelines are!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_e...
1) it feels like a movie series, sensational, scientific and humane
2) comparing it with the previous attempt 5 decades ago leads to interesting conclusions about our technological progress and limits
3) it's almost useless and I didn't expect NASA and the Congress to pour billions for a 10-day ride
Wish them all good and safe return to home.
Not even: Apollo 8[0] went into orbit around the moon (orbited 10 times), then left lunar orbit to return to Earth. This required mission-critical rocket burns both to enter (LOI) and exit (TEI) lunar orbit. Artemis II[1] is merely doing a "fly-by"; it'll never enter lunar orbit, a much less challenging/risky mission.
I am not _too excited_ about the SLS itself as it looks like a political compromise, just as the shuttle was.
But better late than never.
The further we go as humans is Mars, and it's useless. The next star is so, so, so far away that even considering reaching it with "something" requires a revolution in fundamental physics. No need to build rockets for that, just a whiteboard and physicists, I guess.
And saying that we go to Mars is extremely generous. The engineering of the rocket going there is fun, but if you want to send humans there, they have to survive the trip. Including, for instance, eating and drinking and breathing air for the duration of the trip. Those are not solved problems. Chances are that we as a society collapse long before we get to send humans to Mars.
And possibly even before we make it back to the moon's surface.
We could have sent the ship without astronauts to test all the systems and learn the only real valuable question: does this thing work? Instead we get drama & politics, and a much more expensive mission.
There was a comedian that had the observation a few years back that we've lost our saw of awe and wonder: he was on a plane when Internet was just being introduced, and it was announced on the flight, but after a little bit it stopped working and they announced 'technical difficulties' and it wouldn't be available.
The guy next to him was like "this is bullshit": how quickly the world owed this guy something that he knew existed only a few minutes before.
As he goes on: often whenever people complain about their flights, it was like a 1940s German cattle car: X happened, then Y happened. And his response is: And then what happened? Did you fly in the air? Did you sit on a chair in the sky? Like a bird, like humans have been imaging since the tail of Icarus (and before)?
Hedonic adaptation is real (which is "fine" as far as it goes, as striving for better isn't a bad thing):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill
But given you're invoking history, it's easy how it is to forget the woe that humans lived in just a few decades before Apollo 8, and the incredible strides that happened (and that many people on the planet, even now, have yet to fully experience):
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_...
Sure, they tested it on the ground. But that's what they did for Artemis I, and we know how successful that was.
[0] <https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....>
The average person thinks NASA’s only mission of note was Apollo 11, they don’t even realize there were 5 other landings.
Also, not a lot of tech from Apollo was reused after its termination, and this program is very similar. Original Soviet plan (orbital assembly and Venus/Mars flyby) and SpaceX's one much later were/are a lot more pragmatic, as they led to a lot more practical tech and infra even if not fully realized (orbital stations and heavy reusable launchers).
- He conveniently hides facts that might be against his narrative.
- there is an alarming increase in such youtubers that want to present a narrative while ignoring facts that may be against it. this is a very scary trend
- i have stopped watching and unsubscribed to all types of channels in this niche these days
Generational churn makes him right in a way.
The olds will die and policy will change.
Google examples of Olde English. We don't write and talk like that. That English Empire "collapsed" in that its population vanished.
The alarmism is unhinged because, well, yeah. That's how it goes. Will they call themselves Chinese or whatever still? Who knows!
If so, I’m genuinely sorry for you. I hope you can find joy somewhere everyday. If you do already do that, then why not Artemis as well?
Anyway this moon trip seems totally pointless. I can get why other countries want to land there but for the US, moon expeditions have zero value, especially when we are burning so much money on stupid wars and and the same time cutting healthcare and food support for citizens.
This whole thing is nerd fantasy come to life but its not particularly useful and right now the world for most people is about trying to figure out how to deal with the cost of everything thanks to a poorly planned war against Iran.
I’m almost certain you have genuine interests beyond your financials, and enjoy entertainment in general.
The fact is, the vast majority of people (and perhaps yourself) never actually cared about space or space exploration. I think most of this dismissiveness comes from people thinking they SHOULD care, and need to rationalize why they don’t.
The war in Iran doesn't help at all. But it's a much broader problem.
We’re all a bunch of idiots man let some of us go to the moon for gods sake.
And look at America now. Erratic, belligerent, applying tariffs on a whim, threatening to annex Canada and Greenland, threatening to leave NATO, alienating itself from allies.
Don't underestimate the reputational damage America has done and is still doing to itself.
Young men were being drafted, taken from home, and forced to kill people across the world.
African Americans were fighting for basic rights and equality.
A President, a major Presidential candidate, and the most prominent civil rights leader were all assassinated.
It’s not like Apollo was happening during the golden age of America or something…
If you actually do appreciate Apollo, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to appreciate Artemis.
Hell, nobody knows the name of the third guy who did not get to set foot on the Moon with Apollo 11.
I didn't have to google for it to know - Mike Collins. I also knew the the name of the third guy to walk on it - Pete Conrad, and what he said getting out of the LEM (perhaps not precisely): "That may be a small step for Neil, but it was a big one for me"
Can I have my prize now??
They know it happened but they have zero interest in it or the history.
That’s why the average person doesn’t cares now. They never actually did.
Back then, it was a big event that made the news worldwide.
Artemis II launched yesterday, and my non-engineer relatives and friends don't even know it happened (they don't even know it was planned).
People don’t get their “news” from news agencies anymore, though. They get it from their social media algorithms, and if they have no prior interest in anything space or tangential to space, they won’t get news about it.
And if they did hear about it, it probably didn’t connect whatsoever, and their brain filled it away in the same place as “city bus makes successful stop at bus stop.” Because they couldn’t care less.
Culture is far less centralized, for better or worse.
They're not anyway interested in spaceflight but they still got the news
https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-ye...
Newsman Walter Cronkite remembers the year of Apollo 8: "The whole 1960s really culminating in 1968 were the most terrible decade, undoubtedly, of the twentieth century and very possibly our entire history, even including the decade of the Civil War. America was divided as it never had been since the Civil War and by the Vietnam War, by the civil rights fight.
"Everything seemed to come to a head in '68. There were the assassinations of two of the leaders of the more liberal causes. Bobby Kennedy, shortly after winning that election in California that probably would have put him over the top as the presidential candidate that year, and Martin Luther King, of course, in Memphis, was a terrible blow to the entire cause of civil rights. By the summer of '68 the Democratic convention turned out to be a terrible shambles of violence and counter-violence by the Chicago police... By December the country was pretty far down."
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(...
Or are you maybe just generally uninterested in space exploration?
I think Artemis will be cancelled by the end of the year, unfortunately. If the heat shield doesn't hold up as some observers fear/have warned, perhaps by the end of April.
I hope I'm wrong.
So, around 7 billion a year?
We are at around half of the total Artemis cost just one month after the Iran invasion. One week of this war finances one year of the Artemis program. Do you think that's a better deal?
Compared to the military spending, that doesn't even register. Maybe you should be mad about that.
The other is "knowledge and skills" that seem remote and detached from people's lives.
As someone whose life isn't affected much by either of these, I would choose the stimulus every time.
2) the article was an awful piece of hype, that felt like it was sponsored by the Whitehouse.
3) it's hard to see beyond the US imperialism that hangs heavy over space missions. Trump said "the US is winning in space" and he summed up the intent here
4) I might be a nerd but I really don't get the excitement from my fellow nerds. I wonder if they are simply taken in by the hype machine
It’s just too abstract, too complicated, and too far away for them to feel connected to it. It’s not attached to national pride (anymore), it’s not connected to tragedy (typically), it’s not connected to celebrities they feel like they know (Katy Perry isn’t involved with this launch)… there’s just nothing for the average person to connect with.
Every other explanation is just an excuse from people who feel like they should care, but never have.
This is not exciting, it‘s embarassing.
Besides that it‘s a massive waste of money and brings no value to humanity, the USA or science. Why is this done again?
I feel like anyone excited about this is weird.
Secondly I found out we aren’t even try that yet.
It’s really difficult for me to care at this point. I would love to see exciting new developments and sustained efforts.
Today’s article by Peter Baker ( https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/us/politics/artemis-ii-la... ) was yet more political drivel and very light on scientific goals, just a token mention of follow-on missions.
Release the Epstein files, hang every pedophile in them starting with their king, Donald Trump, then move on to anyone of any party who aided and abetted Israels' genocide of Palestinians. Then put the billionaires to the guillotine. Everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line gets to fuck off and have their own country and leave the rest of us alone.
There's a long, long list of things we need to take care of, then maybe we can care about rocketships.
Artemis program and hardware is a huge government money appropriation program, and even if the program makes it to the landing phase, it would still be an unsustainable one-off with probably even less landings than the Apollo program.
Establishing of Moon bases, commercial travel and development there - it is all Starship (naturally predicated on SpaceX success at getting it to $5-10M/launch - if not SpaceX, somebody else would anyway do it)
As i wrote couple days ago the Artemis/SLS will never be able to get to that commercial level https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47583438