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Do you watch sports, football, the Olympics? If not I'm sure you know someone who does. Same category as this. Each of the 32 NFL team is worth about the cost o

Do you watch sports, football, the Olympics? If not I'm sure you know someone who does. Same category as this. Each of the 32 NFL team is worth about the cost of 1-2 Artemis launches. The entire league could fund the whole Artemis program nearly twice. Hosting the Olympics is worth about 3-10 launches. Like sports, the objective is ultimately useless except as a showcase of what humanity has to offer, and people like to see that.

runarberg 7mo ago
I think there is a major difference though. Sports events are not pretending to be anything else. The Artemis mission claims to be advancing science and claims to be a stepping stone for an eventual moon base and a manned mission to Mars. I personally have serious questions about all of these.
- bee_rider 7mo ago
  I don’t have any questions about a mission to Mars, it is a stupid and pointless trip that I don’t want to ask any questions about. The Moon, I dunno, it’s at least in Earth’s gravity well so it isn’t like we’re going totally the wrong direction when we go there, right? At best it could be a gas station on the trip to somewhere interesting like the Asteroid belt, though.
  - runarberg 7mo ago
    Whether a moon base is needed or even beneficial is a question I have not heard a convincing answer in favor. And even if moon base is indeed needed and/or beneficial to future space exploration / resource extraction why robots cannot more efficiently build (or assemble) such a moon base is another question I need an answer to. We are sending humans to (or around) the moon now, but it may just turn out to be a wasted effort, done solely for the opulence (or more cynically bragging rights / nationalist propaganda).
    - sarchertech 7mo ago
      We are nowhere near the capability to launch robots to the moon that can autonomously build or assemble a moon base for any useful definition of moon base. > We are sending humans to (or around) the moon now, but it may just turn out to be a wasted effort, done solely for the opulence My 4 year old is extremely excited to watch the launch tonight because it’s manned. I’d say a few billion is worth it if all it does is inspire a new generation of astronauts, engineers, and scientists.
      - runarberg 7mo ago
        And neither are we anywhere near the capability to lunch construction workers to the moon which can build or assemble an equivalent moon base with their human labor. So this answer does not satisfy me one bit. > inspire a new generation of astronauts, engineers, and scientists This is a good point. And I would like it to be true. However when you have to lie about (or exaggerate) the scientific value of the mission, that is not exactly inspiring is it. Your 4 year old could be equally inspired by the amazing photos James Webb has given us, and unlike Artemis, James Webb is providing us with unique data which is inspiring all sorts of new science.
        sarchertech 7mo ago
        > And neither are we anywhere near the capability to lunch construction workers to the moon which can build or assemble an equivalent moon base with their human labor. So this answer does not satisfy me one bit. We have the capability to do that. We don’t have the will to do it, but we have the technology. We don’t even have autonomous robots that are capable of building a moon base on earth. > Your 4 year old could be equally inspired by the amazing photos James Webb has given us, and unlike Artemis, James Webb is providing us with unique data which is inspiring all sorts of new science. He’s not though. People gather around as a family and watch manned space missions. It’s exciting in a way that a telescope or a probe isn’t.
        adrian_b 7mo ago
  - storus 7mo ago
    Mars pushes the frontier (even if no one might survive the trip due to human body deteriorating), going around the Moon is meh - we were there ~57 years ago multiple times so what's the point?
    - bee_rider 7mo ago
      Mars isn’t a frontier, it is a wrong turn that leads to a dried out toxic well in the middle of nowhere. We should aim for the asteroid belt. Maybe we can mine them or something. It’d be less like a frontier and more like an offshore oil platform, but still, it is at least semi-plausible.
- foltik 7mo ago
  Do you really disagree that it’s advancing science? Surely actually testing hardware, building knowledge on how to run this type of mission, learning to use lunar resources, figuring out how to keep people alive, etc. will teach us things we couldn’t learn any other way. Fwiw do share your concerns about the methods (sending humans on this specific mission is questionable, SLS is questionable compared to SpaceX approach).
  - duped 7mo ago
    Do you think we will learn more from Artemis or the Asteroid Redirect Mission? Because that's a concrete example of how funding this mission caused other experiments to be cancelled.
    - foltik 7mo ago
      Fair point, but that’s an argument about prioritization within NASA’s budget (and its size relative to other spending), not the scientific value of the mission.
      - duped 7mo ago
        There's never non-zero value to any challenging engineering problem. The question is whether the finite resources spent to solve it are best spent on it versus other projects. And in this mission in particular, you can't divorce science from politics. NASA's budget was reined in by Trump 45 and his admin picked Artemis because a manned mission to the moon invokes a particular feeling and memory, not because it benefits science. The moon is a known quantity, and going there is not more valuable than the other projects the government could have spent $100 billion on. Keep in mind, this is one of the most expensive single launches in history while there is a partial government shutdown and the rest of the federal government that does real research has been gutted by this same administration. So it's tough to talk about "scientific value" when it's obvious that this mission is doing little science at the same time the government has decreed it won't be in the business of paying for science.
        7mo ago
- nancyminusone 7mo ago
  The fact that we hope to get some new tech with this whereas sports aims for nothing is just icing on the cake. I think big space missions are worth it every now and then on a humanitarian level; even if no new discoveries are made, a new generation of engineers will become fluent in what we have already discovered. Humanity's education is not "done" when the last fact is written in a book, it needs to be constantly refreshed or it will disappear. Even in sports you do not get "nothing", it has certainty helped advance the field of medicine.
  - runarberg 7mo ago
    > a new generation of engineers will become fluent in what we have already discovered. We seem to have lost the technology of going to the moon we gained from Apollo. So without an actual follow-up and a tangible long term plan I suspect the exact same will happen this time around.
    - nancyminusone 7mo ago
      Yeah, that's probably an indication that we waited too long.
      - runarberg 7mo ago
        Or, more likely, it is an indication that manned moon missions are simply not that important, that this technology is simply not worth the cost of maintaining. In contrast, we kept the technology of doing robotic missions in space, on the moon, and even on other planets and even asteroids (the latter two have much to improve upon though).
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > We seem to have lost the technology of going to the moon we gained from Apollo Some of it. Much for good reason. What are you referring to that we’ve lost that we would want?
ApolloFortyNine 7mo ago
Even if you think Space travel is worth the money (which I personally do), adding humans to the mix makes projects incredibly more expensive. Even in the realm of space travel and research, sending humans is a questionable use of the money.
- post-it 7mo ago
  Sports would also be much cheaper without humans.
  - zarzavat 7mo ago
    The most important (if not entertaining) things you can do in space don't involve humans. Telescopes, communications, earth observation, sending probes to distant bodies, etc. It's nice that we can send humans to space and it's good to keep that capability going so that the knowledge doesn't die. But the unmanned missions tend to pull the weight of actually accomplishing useful things. Humans just get in the way.
    - pigpop 7mo ago
      Most people don't find those things interesting unless people are directly involved in them.
  - wat10000 7mo ago
    Turns out I don't understand the point sports either.
- edm0nd 7mo ago
  People are going to have to die in order for us to increase our space knowledge. It sucks but thats just how it be, it requires humans for most of it.
Rebelgecko 7mo ago
I think in general space exploration is a great use of taxpayer money, but the artemis program doesn't seem great from either a "science per dollar" or "novel accomplishment per dollar" standpoint. If the goal was just to flex on the rest of the world I would've much rather we focused on going somewhere new or returning to the moon in a more sustainable way
- pj_mukh 7mo ago
  "returning to the moon in a more sustainable way" Isn't this the point of this mission? If your point is "it shouldn't take this much money", then I agree. But also point to almost everything else.
  - runarberg 7mo ago
    I think that is the point, but whether this mission will actually do that is rather unconvincing. After (and if) Artemis III lands on the moon and brings home the astronauts there seems to be very little planned on how we actually get to the moon base which NASA is claiming this will lead to, let alone the manned Mars mission that is also supposed to follow. In other words, I think NASA is greatly exaggerating, and possibly lying, about the utility of this mission.
    - shash 7mo ago
      They’ve changed it so III isn’t landing. That will be IV apparently.
    - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
      > there seems to be very little planned on how we actually get to the moon base There is a lot of research going into in situ construction methods and even nuclear power plants on the moon [1]. (Which would be necessary to bootstrap eventual indigenous panel production [2].) To me it’s encouraging to see this fundamental work being attacked than an endless sea of renderings. The reason you aren’t seeing heavy detailing, despite construction slated to begin with Artemis V, is we’re waiting for the launch vehicles. (“Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program” [3].) [1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-to-develop-lunar-surface-reactor-by-2030/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00971-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00971-x [3] https://blog.matt-rickard.com/p/akins-laws-of-spacecraft-design https://blog.matt-rickard.com/p/akins-laws-of-spacecraft-des...
palata 7mo ago
The difference being that sports are not exclusively paid by taxes, I guess?
- JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
  > difference being that sports are not exclusively paid by taxes Space isn’t financed “exclusively” by taxes, either.
- _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
  In the USA tax payers pay for most stadiums/arenas.
  - palata 7mo ago
    But I'm guessing the people benefit from those, too.

runarberg 7mo ago

I think there is a major difference though. Sports events are not pretending to be anything else. The Artemis mission claims to be advancing science and claims to be a stepping stone for an eventual moon base and a manned mission to Mars. I personally have serious questions about all of these.

bee_rider 7mo ago
I don’t have any questions about a mission to Mars, it is a stupid and pointless trip that I don’t want to ask any questions about. The Moon, I dunno, it’s at least in Earth’s gravity well so it isn’t like we’re going totally the wrong direction when we go there, right? At best it could be a gas station on the trip to somewhere interesting like the Asteroid belt, though.
- runarberg 7mo ago
  Whether a moon base is needed or even beneficial is a question I have not heard a convincing answer in favor. And even if moon base is indeed needed and/or beneficial to future space exploration / resource extraction why robots cannot more efficiently build (or assemble) such a moon base is another question I need an answer to. We are sending humans to (or around) the moon now, but it may just turn out to be a wasted effort, done solely for the opulence (or more cynically bragging rights / nationalist propaganda).
  - sarchertech 7mo ago
    We are nowhere near the capability to launch robots to the moon that can autonomously build or assemble a moon base for any useful definition of moon base. > We are sending humans to (or around) the moon now, but it may just turn out to be a wasted effort, done solely for the opulence My 4 year old is extremely excited to watch the launch tonight because it’s manned. I’d say a few billion is worth it if all it does is inspire a new generation of astronauts, engineers, and scientists.
    - runarberg 7mo ago
      And neither are we anywhere near the capability to lunch construction workers to the moon which can build or assemble an equivalent moon base with their human labor. So this answer does not satisfy me one bit. > inspire a new generation of astronauts, engineers, and scientists This is a good point. And I would like it to be true. However when you have to lie about (or exaggerate) the scientific value of the mission, that is not exactly inspiring is it. Your 4 year old could be equally inspired by the amazing photos James Webb has given us, and unlike Artemis, James Webb is providing us with unique data which is inspiring all sorts of new science.
      - sarchertech 7mo ago
        > And neither are we anywhere near the capability to lunch construction workers to the moon which can build or assemble an equivalent moon base with their human labor. So this answer does not satisfy me one bit. We have the capability to do that. We don’t have the will to do it, but we have the technology. We don’t even have autonomous robots that are capable of building a moon base on earth. > Your 4 year old could be equally inspired by the amazing photos James Webb has given us, and unlike Artemis, James Webb is providing us with unique data which is inspiring all sorts of new science. He’s not though. People gather around as a family and watch manned space missions. It’s exciting in a way that a telescope or a probe isn’t.
        adrian_b 7mo ago
- storus 7mo ago
  Mars pushes the frontier (even if no one might survive the trip due to human body deteriorating), going around the Moon is meh - we were there ~57 years ago multiple times so what's the point?
  - bee_rider 7mo ago
    Mars isn’t a frontier, it is a wrong turn that leads to a dried out toxic well in the middle of nowhere. We should aim for the asteroid belt. Maybe we can mine them or something. It’d be less like a frontier and more like an offshore oil platform, but still, it is at least semi-plausible.
foltik 7mo ago
Do you really disagree that it’s advancing science? Surely actually testing hardware, building knowledge on how to run this type of mission, learning to use lunar resources, figuring out how to keep people alive, etc. will teach us things we couldn’t learn any other way. Fwiw do share your concerns about the methods (sending humans on this specific mission is questionable, SLS is questionable compared to SpaceX approach).
- duped 7mo ago
  Do you think we will learn more from Artemis or the Asteroid Redirect Mission? Because that's a concrete example of how funding this mission caused other experiments to be cancelled.
  - foltik 7mo ago
    Fair point, but that’s an argument about prioritization within NASA’s budget (and its size relative to other spending), not the scientific value of the mission.
    - duped 7mo ago
      There's never non-zero value to any challenging engineering problem. The question is whether the finite resources spent to solve it are best spent on it versus other projects. And in this mission in particular, you can't divorce science from politics. NASA's budget was reined in by Trump 45 and his admin picked Artemis because a manned mission to the moon invokes a particular feeling and memory, not because it benefits science. The moon is a known quantity, and going there is not more valuable than the other projects the government could have spent $100 billion on. Keep in mind, this is one of the most expensive single launches in history while there is a partial government shutdown and the rest of the federal government that does real research has been gutted by this same administration. So it's tough to talk about "scientific value" when it's obvious that this mission is doing little science at the same time the government has decreed it won't be in the business of paying for science.
      - 7mo ago
nancyminusone 7mo ago
The fact that we hope to get some new tech with this whereas sports aims for nothing is just icing on the cake. I think big space missions are worth it every now and then on a humanitarian level; even if no new discoveries are made, a new generation of engineers will become fluent in what we have already discovered. Humanity's education is not "done" when the last fact is written in a book, it needs to be constantly refreshed or it will disappear. Even in sports you do not get "nothing", it has certainty helped advance the field of medicine.
- runarberg 7mo ago
  > a new generation of engineers will become fluent in what we have already discovered. We seem to have lost the technology of going to the moon we gained from Apollo. So without an actual follow-up and a tangible long term plan I suspect the exact same will happen this time around.
  - nancyminusone 7mo ago
    Yeah, that's probably an indication that we waited too long.
    - runarberg 7mo ago
      Or, more likely, it is an indication that manned moon missions are simply not that important, that this technology is simply not worth the cost of maintaining. In contrast, we kept the technology of doing robotic missions in space, on the moon, and even on other planets and even asteroids (the latter two have much to improve upon though).
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > We seem to have lost the technology of going to the moon we gained from Apollo Some of it. Much for good reason. What are you referring to that we’ve lost that we would want?

ApolloFortyNine 7mo ago

Even if you think Space travel is worth the money (which I personally do), adding humans to the mix makes projects incredibly more expensive. Even in the realm of space travel and research, sending humans is a questionable use of the money.

post-it 7mo ago
Sports would also be much cheaper without humans.
- zarzavat 7mo ago
  The most important (if not entertaining) things you can do in space don't involve humans. Telescopes, communications, earth observation, sending probes to distant bodies, etc. It's nice that we can send humans to space and it's good to keep that capability going so that the knowledge doesn't die. But the unmanned missions tend to pull the weight of actually accomplishing useful things. Humans just get in the way.
  - pigpop 7mo ago
    Most people don't find those things interesting unless people are directly involved in them.
- wat10000 7mo ago
  Turns out I don't understand the point sports either.
edm0nd 7mo ago
People are going to have to die in order for us to increase our space knowledge. It sucks but thats just how it be, it requires humans for most of it.

Rebelgecko 7mo ago

I think in general space exploration is a great use of taxpayer money, but the artemis program doesn't seem great from either a "science per dollar" or "novel accomplishment per dollar" standpoint. If the goal was just to flex on the rest of the world I would've much rather we focused on going somewhere new or returning to the moon in a more sustainable way

pj_mukh 7mo ago
"returning to the moon in a more sustainable way" Isn't this the point of this mission? If your point is "it shouldn't take this much money", then I agree. But also point to almost everything else.
- runarberg 7mo ago
  I think that is the point, but whether this mission will actually do that is rather unconvincing. After (and if) Artemis III lands on the moon and brings home the astronauts there seems to be very little planned on how we actually get to the moon base which NASA is claiming this will lead to, let alone the manned Mars mission that is also supposed to follow. In other words, I think NASA is greatly exaggerating, and possibly lying, about the utility of this mission.
  - shash 7mo ago
    They’ve changed it so III isn’t landing. That will be IV apparently.
  - JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
    > there seems to be very little planned on how we actually get to the moon base There is a lot of research going into in situ construction methods and even nuclear power plants on the moon [1]. (Which would be necessary to bootstrap eventual indigenous panel production [2].) To me it’s encouraging to see this fundamental work being attacked than an endless sea of renderings. The reason you aren’t seeing heavy detailing, despite construction slated to begin with Artemis V, is we’re waiting for the launch vehicles. (“Any exploration program which "just happens" to include a new launch vehicle is, de facto, a launch vehicle program” [3].) [1] https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-to-develop-lunar-surface-reactor-by-2030/ https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-department-of-energy-... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00971-x https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00971-x [3] https://blog.matt-rickard.com/p/akins-laws-of-spacecraft-design https://blog.matt-rickard.com/p/akins-laws-of-spacecraft-des...

palata 7mo ago

The difference being that sports are not exclusively paid by taxes, I guess?

JumpCrisscross 7mo ago
> difference being that sports are not exclusively paid by taxes Space isn’t financed “exclusively” by taxes, either.
_DeadFred_ 7mo ago
In the USA tax payers pay for most stadiums/arenas.
- palata 7mo ago
  But I'm guessing the people benefit from those, too.