This has turned into a discussion about First Man rather than the article, so I may as well contribute: I think Damien Chazelle intended to frame the movie as

This has turned into a discussion about First Man rather than the article, so I may as well contribute: I think Damien Chazelle intended to frame the movie as a war movie, even toeing towards a parallel between the Apollo missions and the Vietnam War. The idea that we actively gambled with these men's lives, somehow collectively desensitized ourselves to human loss, that we are all boys pretending to have protocol- obvious parallels to war, in that a bureaucratic borg overlooks human lives in a competition the borg itself created. But the thing is- its pretty hard to not lean into the inherent heroism of landing on the moon, especially since the studio clearly gave Chazelle a blank check to recreate the moon landing as immaculately as possible. So its a little hard to parse the final message. The movie is the inverse of Apollo 13, pessimistic where 13 is optimistic, even though First Man is about the successful one. To some extent, Mission Control are the villains in this movie. It isn't not going be a loved movie, like his last two (Whiplash and La La Land.) The characters are constantly aware of their mortal peril, which in turn makes them coarse and hard to like. But its such an interesting take on the Moon missions.