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Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

89 points by paulpauper 7mo ago

secretsatan 7mo ago
Got some moron in charge taking all progress back 50 years
abdelhousni 7mo ago
Some people may think it's "Fake news"... Seriously, I guess people are more concerned of the damages and crimes done by the US Trump government and its effects on earth.
- metalman 7mo ago
  it is at a minimum, semantic missalignment, as they are most defintly not going " to the moon", but are going to take a huge swing by at a huge speed, because they dont have the fuel to do a burn into a circular LLO (low lunar orbit),and then get home, and are realy just slingshoting back to earth. wish them luck in that though.
  - abdelhousni 7mo ago
    I just saw the NASA simulation, it is indeed terrific and also risky. I hope they keep safe.
- TimorousBestie 7mo ago
  Even “real news” these days is insipid and poorly written. For instance, the NYT coverage pre-launch barely communicated the mission parameters. Today’s article by Peter Baker ( https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/us/politics/artemis-ii-launch-trump.html 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.
Avicebron 7mo ago
We do. But the relative purchasing power and command over purchasing essentials for a middle class life from 1969 to now has shifted so dramatically people are not comfortable enough to care.
- mikelitoris 7mo ago
  I don’t know why this is down voted but I think this is the answer for the majority of people.
oconnor663 7mo ago
I question the choice of the phrase "to the Moon". I get it, it's technically true, but ~100% of normal people hear that and assume it means boots on the ground. Every single time it gets mentioned, it's immediately followed by a clarification that disappoints the audience. This isn't the sort of marketing choice that a self-confident program makes.
- whycome 7mo ago
  Seems we brought up a similar point at the exact same time. When the subsequent mission actually lands it will attempt the same level of hype
- Zanni 7mo ago
  Exactly. I'm happy to see NASA get back in the game, but this is basically just a test flight. I'll get excited for the next one. ("Hey, kids! We're going to Disneyland! We're going to drive all the way around it before we head home!")
  - trackone 7mo ago
    Even the next one isn't landing on the moon. It is still a test flight. Good that they are testing things obviously, but it is hard to get excited about testing...
    - em-bee 7mo ago
      the apollo program had 5 crewed flights, two of which went to the moon without landing. after 50 years of not going there, it is exciting that something is happening. i don't actually care about landing on the moon. i care about what is being tested and learned from these flights, whether they do land on the moon or not. the moonlanding better be a test for base building for example and not just collecting samples. we can do that with robots already.
- whattheheckheck 7mo ago
  Dont forget 4/1 Elon tweeted he was putting a doge coin on the moon. When that does happen in 2027 or 2028 its going to actually explode in price for the hype
whycome 7mo ago
The language is weird about it. Because it’s not a landing. Most people don’t think of Apollo 8 as “going to the moon” — for the public, that’s Apollo 11.
- palata 7mo ago
  That, and most people don't care about the Apollo missions that happened after Apollo 11. Hell, nobody knows the name of the third guy who did not get to set foot on the Moon with Apollo 11.
  - Gagarin1917 7mo ago
    Most people don’t care about Apollo 11 period. 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.
    - palata 7mo ago
      Well the comparison is not what people think about Apollo 11 right now, but what they thought back then. 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).
      - Gagarin1917 7mo ago
        It WAS global news, I assure you. Every major news agency and local news channels talked about it. 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.
happytoexplain 7mo ago
Everything that has made my country great has been or is being destroyed. The life I have tirelessly worked for is a shadow of the life my parents and grandparents had. I realize we're going to (orbit) the moon, and I think it's great, but I'm tired. Why would I even talk about this thing?
- greenavocado 7mo ago
  It's going to get a lot worse over the next 20 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmERlHUqBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmERlHUqBk
  - ozgung 7mo ago
    I knew it was this guy before clicking the link.
  - _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
    You might want to dig a little on this guy. He' himself professor but he isn't, and believes the Jesuit Illuminati runs the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSiS-8Msn1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSiS-8Msn1I
  - wewtyflakes 7mo ago
    Very large, critical, assumptions were made in that video ("US/China/Europe will collapse!") and then he hand-waved away when pressed for evidence ("because its obvious!").
    - yabutlivnWoods 7mo ago
      IMO these nut jobs aren't really saying anything novel, just obvious stuff in alarmist tones. 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!
PaulRobinson 7mo ago
$93 billion over 13 years doesn't feel like a great deal for a program that has started to align around a single person's ego, when most of the US is struggling to make ends meet. 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.
- gedy 7mo ago
  We handed out 300 billion in cash payments alone for COVID stimulus, this is not that crazy especially if you factor in the knowledge and skills put to work and retained.
  - g947o 7mo ago
    One is real cash going into the hands of ordinary people for everyday purchases, which has proven (in various studies) to have helped parents/families and the financially struggled. 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.
    - gedy 7mo ago
      The money was not vaporized by aerospace companies, it's largely spent in US on salaries, subcontractors, etc. Not against stimulus but to call out the amount in comparison is reasonable.
- stickfigure 7mo ago
  I'd rather spend it on high speed rail projects.
  - zabzonk 7mo ago
    Come and live in the UK :-(
voidfunc 7mo ago
Been there; done that. 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.
- Avicebron 7mo ago
  > the cost of everything thanks to a poorly planned war against Iran. The war in Iran doesn't help at all. But it's a much broader problem.
- whackernews 7mo ago
  Yeh how are we all going to keep the air con on full blast and get our food delivered to our doorstep through summer! We’re all a bunch of idiots man let some of us go to the moon for gods sake.
- Gagarin1917 7mo ago
  This just isn’t true, people have tons of interests beyond “things that are useful” and “trying to figure out how to deal with the cost of everything.” 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.
- starkparker 7mo ago
  When Apollo 8 went up in December 1968, the US was near the peak of its involvement in the expensive and poorly planned Vietnam war, inflation had been rising in the US for three years and had hit 7.2% in October, the doomed, corrupt, and paranoid Republican president-elect had ran on lowering the price of hamburgers and medical care but was actively trying to manipulate the Supreme Court's composition behind the scenes, Israel was bombing its neighbors, control over the Panama Canal was being contested, the Hong Kong Flu epidemic was winding down, popular news was gripped by a kidnapping story involving a celebrity, and the NTSB was struggling to explain why so many passenger aircraft were being involved in fatal crashes and collisions with ground structures
palata 7mo ago
I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. 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.
- outworlder 7mo ago
  > it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life. 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.
  - palata 7mo ago
    > That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. 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).
eigenrick 7mo ago
So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics (https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....)
- cyanydeez 7mo ago
  Given how incurious 99% of the elected american government is, the amount of enthusiasm has a very low ceiling.
- whackernews 7mo ago
  [flagged]
- 0xf00ff00f 7mo ago
  This is the first time humans go beyond LEO in my lifetime, so personally I'm pretty excited.
  - ribs 7mo ago
    I know we're not really supposed to say stuff like this on HN, but: hells to the yeah
- outworlder 7mo ago
  Sure, you may look at it from that perspective. Or, you could look into it as restoring a capability that we used to have, and potentially enable further, more interesting missions. 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.
  - skeeter2020 7mo ago
    I'm just not that jazzed on what we could possibly learn. I can go on a big road trip and eat, sleep (but probably not poop) in my minivan; what does that teach me about moving to a new city or country? I can drive across the country and do a loop around Houston's ring road; that tells me nothing about what it's like to live there. 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.
plusfour 7mo ago
i don't care
trhway 7mo ago
we're going back to Moon and going to Mars too on Starship, and it is just a normal roadmap of the SpaceX. And that makes me excited about space future - normalcy of it just being a business, a good profitable business. Where is existence or not of Artemis wouldn't change much our space future. 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47583438
hniszionist 7mo ago
[flagged]
autoexec 7mo ago
"Back to the moon" sounds deceptive since we're not actually going to the moon, we're just sending a rocket around it. An actual moon landing will get a lot more attention. What's far more impressive about this launch to me is that it will be the farthest out into space people have been. I think the NASA PR team would have done better making that the headline rather than all this "to the moon!" talk
lisper 7mo ago
Because we are not going back to the moon. A flyby is going to the moon in the same way that driving by the Anaheim exit on I-5 is going to Disneyland.
- joelshep 7mo ago
  Did Apollo 8 go to the moon?
  - lisper 7mo ago
    Nope. Came close, though Apollo 10 came closer. But there's a reason that Apollo 11 is the one everyone remembers.
deleted 7mo ago
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sys_64738 7mo ago
Pink Floyd did it in the 1970s.
krapp 7mo ago
[flagged]
breve 7mo ago
> The Apollo program was the triple-back-handspring exclamation mark on a century of American technological transformations, during which Americans had electrified their cities, filled their streets with cars and their skies with airplanes, split atoms, and invented digital computers. 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.
- Gagarin1917 7mo ago
  During the Apollo missions, the US was melting babies in Vietnam, amongst other war crimes. 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.
  - throw0101c 7mo ago
    Commentary at the time: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon
    - UncleMeat 7mo ago
      An absolute classic.
- JohnTHaller 7mo ago
  Don't forget blowing up boats we think might be drugs and then purposely killing the survivors on the orders of the self-proclaimed US Secretary of War. "no quarter, no mercy"
  - vkou 7mo ago
jbattle 7mo ago
I just want to say it blows my mind we're likely to literally land on the moon before we get a proper KSP 2
- Tadpole9181 7mo ago
  Why? It's very likely we will never get a "proper" KSP 2. And that was pretty clear from KSP 1 through the acquisition to the multiple studio transfers
Gagarin1917 7mo ago
The basic truth is, the vast majority of people couldn’t give less of a fuck about space and space exploration. 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.
TrackerFF 7mo ago
I think there's a war in the middle east. And a circus back home. Think those are hogging the spotlight right now.
- Gagarin1917 7mo ago
  Would you have been uninterested in Apollo at the time because of the Vietnam war? Or are you maybe just generally uninterested in space exploration?
  - sph 7mo ago
    There was no social media and high-speed internet in your pocket during the Vietnam war. We are literally bombarded with information every waking moment of our lives, and consume more highly-emotional information to take a break from too much information.
    - Gagarin1917 7mo ago
      Which is why allowing oneself to appreciate something as positive and inspiring as the Artemis Program is so important these days.
bwoah 7mo ago
https://archive.is/mwlfi https://archive.is/mwlfi
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tayo42 7mo ago
There's alot off reasons to not be interested other people are listing them. Space exploration in general has been taken over by billionaires as their hobby becasue they have to much money. I find it hard to care about someone else's expensive toys.
eeixlk 7mo ago
Trump attempted to significantly decrease NASAs budgets and cancel missions so this is happening despite him, and I cant feel joy for this when we are putting people in cages, manipulating stock markets, entering pointless wars, and raising prices of everything while Billionares massively increase their wealth through technically-legal manipulations of the system. This feels like a sad memory of what used to be more than anything else.
rtcode_io 7mo ago
People think it's a fake show for distraction.
tetrisgm 7mo ago
I’m probably going to get downvoted, but two things: Firstly, I thought ok great we’re sending people there again. Finally. I mean we did this in the 60s but cool that we’re resuming I guess. 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.
charlie90 7mo ago
China built out their high speed rail for $300B over about the same period. Artemis is 1/3rd the cost of that. Theres lots of impressive engineering to do thats also cool and useful to ordinary people. Going to the moon is just vanity.
JohnTHaller 7mo ago
We're not going to the moon. We're going around the moon. You wouldn't say you went to Chicago if you drove in a circle around it without entering the city.
razorbeamz 7mo ago
It hasn't been very well marketed. NASA lost a lot of their budget and they're not spending so much on outreach. I didn't know it was happening at all until launch day.
- casefields 7mo ago
  Losing 1.1% is a lot in your mind? Really? https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-year-2026-spending-bills-nsf-nasa-and-doe https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-ye...
- ajam1507 7mo ago
  They should be spending exactly $0 on marketing. They're sending people around the moon in a giant rocket ship. It sells itself.
  - krapp 7mo ago
    >They're sending people around the moon in a giant rocket ship. It sells itself. It actually doesn't. It didn't even "sell itself" the first time. Apollo required a massive national propaganda campaign framing the space race in terms of an existential war against communist annihilation to get people to even care - and people still stopped caring once the news stopped being sensational.
artlessmax 7mo ago
https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?si=33U1qlIRFihFqc5- https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?si=33U1qlIRFihFqc5-
mbgerring 7mo ago
Probably because the first time we did it we were an optimistic country with a good economy and a bright future in front of us?
- joelshep 7mo ago
  Hardly. Remembering the end of 1968, when Apollo 8 made the first manned voyage out of earth's orbit, and orbited the moon: 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."
- slavik81 7mo ago
  Not everyone was so optimistic. Many people argued that the money spent going to the moon would be better spent on problems here on Earth. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(website).pdf/51 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(...
orbital-decay 7mo ago
The real answer is that one of a kind single-launch Moon mission is not all that interesting. If you read anyone who participated in the Apollo program (engineers or mission control people like Gene Kranz), everyone knew that the only thing that kept the program afloat was novelty. It's not there anymore. I would say JPL is way too underrated compared to the moon flights, as it's the main reason we know so much about the Solar System. 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).
Traubenfuchs 7mo ago
Humanity did something better (humans on the moon) decades ago and now we are struggling to fly around the moon. 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.
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trashface 7mo ago
Used to love space stuff, although some of it was horrible (old enough to remember watching the challenger blow up on TV as a pre-teen). Don't really understand this moon effort. Space is uniquely hostile to humans, our tech just isn't ready IMO and probably won't be for 100 years. Our personas certainly aren't ready - I can tolerate far more isolation than most people, I often go 1-2 weeks without any real human contact at all, routinely go days without speaking to anyone. And yet the idea of living on a moon or mars colony gives me serious pause for the isolation it would involve. Space station has a different problem in that i'd be wanting to push people out of the airlock after a few weeks, or eject myself that way. 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.
lifestyleguru 7mo ago
The American passive participation in what is widely considered as a genocide, and an active invasion of another country without a reason are all more spectacular. Overall the world is deeply tired of their shit.
siliconpotato 7mo ago
1) nobody's landing on the moon this 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
- expedition32 7mo ago
  Yeah the flag waving is very off putting. Why would non USians care? It's like the Superbowl. More interesting is the possible Chinese moon landing. It would be their first and a good gauge to monitor their progress as a superpower.
erelong 7mo ago
Too many other pressing issues on Earth
drivingmenuts 7mo ago
I think the intent is there. I do not have faith that people, politics or events will cooperate with us. I also think this is NASA's last hurrah before space flight is subsumed by commercial interests, which will be the end of the dream of space science for the common good of mankind.
tsoukase 7mo ago
It is a major event but only in some terms: 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.
adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago
What exactly are we supposed to get excited about? - The headline mission “Going to the moon” was done 60 years ago - Any scientific research could be done better and cheaper with robots. No humans required. - If it’s supposed to be a step forward in space travel, well, it’s just a step forward. Let’s get real space travel going and people might be excited for that. - If it’s the technological progress then we are seeing a lot of technological progress all the time. It’s questionable that any of it is making our lives better. So, what are people supposed to be excited about?
npilk 7mo ago
To everyone saying "we've done this before" or "we're not even landing" - we have sent humans to the Moon a total of 9 times. This is the 10th. Nobody has been out there in 50+ years. We've only landed on the Moon 6 times, and this mission is a stepping stone to future manned landings. Do people really feel like "yeah, we went 9 times, that's enough, no need to ever send anyone again"?
- ajam1507 7mo ago
  Yes, it's dangerous and the benefits of sending people to the Moon and Mars are few.
- eudamoniac 7mo ago
  Not "no need to ever send anyone again" but it's certainly not very interesting at this point. Maybe it's worth the spend, maybe not, but either way I don't find doing something a 10th time very intriguing. It first happened in the 60s. My father isn't even old enough to remember it. Doing the same thing as then, today, is very hard to care about. Might as well tell me that we're inventing a 10th form factor for a vinyl record.
dtagames 7mo ago
Panem et circenses for the space age.
insane_dreamer 7mo ago
Maybe if we Americans had proper healthcare, that wasn't getting gutted to fund a pointless war that is both killing people and damaging our own economy, it would be easier to get excited about going back to the moon.
Desafinado 7mo ago
It's hard to get excited about an organization spending ?? on a pointless mission that's happening because of organizational inertia when kids don't have functional textbooks at school.
poulpy123 7mo ago
"Why isn't everyone as obsessed as me about my hobbies?" Well maybe because the context here is not great and we don't have much time and energy to focus on these useless endeavors
burnt-resistor 7mo ago
[dead]

89 points by paulpauper 7mo ago

Got some moron in charge taking all progress back 50 years

Some people may think it's "Fake news"... Seriously, I guess people are more concerned of the damages and crimes done by the US Trump government and its effects on earth.

metalman 7mo ago
it is at a minimum, semantic missalignment, as they are most defintly not going " to the moon", but are going to take a huge swing by at a huge speed, because they dont have the fuel to do a burn into a circular LLO (low lunar orbit),and then get home, and are realy just slingshoting back to earth. wish them luck in that though.
- abdelhousni 7mo ago
  I just saw the NASA simulation, it is indeed terrific and also risky. I hope they keep safe.
TimorousBestie 7mo ago
Even “real news” these days is insipid and poorly written. For instance, the NYT coverage pre-launch barely communicated the mission parameters. Today’s article by Peter Baker ( https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/02/us/politics/artemis-ii-launch-trump.html 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.

Avicebron 7mo ago

We do. But the relative purchasing power and command over purchasing essentials for a middle class life from 1969 to now has shifted so dramatically people are not comfortable enough to care.

mikelitoris 7mo ago
I don’t know why this is down voted but I think this is the answer for the majority of people.

oconnor663 7mo ago

I question the choice of the phrase "to the Moon". I get it, it's technically true, but ~100% of normal people hear that and assume it means boots on the ground. Every single time it gets mentioned, it's immediately followed by a clarification that disappoints the audience. This isn't the sort of marketing choice that a self-confident program makes.

whycome 7mo ago
Seems we brought up a similar point at the exact same time. When the subsequent mission actually lands it will attempt the same level of hype
Zanni 7mo ago
Exactly. I'm happy to see NASA get back in the game, but this is basically just a test flight. I'll get excited for the next one. ("Hey, kids! We're going to Disneyland! We're going to drive all the way around it before we head home!")
- trackone 7mo ago
  Even the next one isn't landing on the moon. It is still a test flight. Good that they are testing things obviously, but it is hard to get excited about testing...
  - em-bee 7mo ago
    the apollo program had 5 crewed flights, two of which went to the moon without landing. after 50 years of not going there, it is exciting that something is happening. i don't actually care about landing on the moon. i care about what is being tested and learned from these flights, whether they do land on the moon or not. the moonlanding better be a test for base building for example and not just collecting samples. we can do that with robots already.
whattheheckheck 7mo ago
Dont forget 4/1 Elon tweeted he was putting a doge coin on the moon. When that does happen in 2027 or 2028 its going to actually explode in price for the hype

whycome 7mo ago

The language is weird about it. Because it’s not a landing. Most people don’t think of Apollo 8 as “going to the moon” — for the public, that’s Apollo 11.

palata 7mo ago
That, and most people don't care about the Apollo missions that happened after Apollo 11. Hell, nobody knows the name of the third guy who did not get to set foot on the Moon with Apollo 11.
- Gagarin1917 7mo ago
  Most people don’t care about Apollo 11 period. 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.
  - palata 7mo ago
    Well the comparison is not what people think about Apollo 11 right now, but what they thought back then. 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).
    - Gagarin1917 7mo ago
      It WAS global news, I assure you. Every major news agency and local news channels talked about it. 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.

happytoexplain 7mo ago

Everything that has made my country great has been or is being destroyed. The life I have tirelessly worked for is a shadow of the life my parents and grandparents had. I realize we're going to (orbit) the moon, and I think it's great, but I'm tired. Why would I even talk about this thing?

greenavocado 7mo ago
It's going to get a lot worse over the next 20 years https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmERlHUqBk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrmERlHUqBk
- ozgung 7mo ago
  I knew it was this guy before clicking the link.
- _DeadFred_ 7mo ago
  You might want to dig a little on this guy. He' himself professor but he isn't, and believes the Jesuit Illuminati runs the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSiS-8Msn1I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSiS-8Msn1I
- wewtyflakes 7mo ago
  Very large, critical, assumptions were made in that video ("US/China/Europe will collapse!") and then he hand-waved away when pressed for evidence ("because its obvious!").
  - yabutlivnWoods 7mo ago
    IMO these nut jobs aren't really saying anything novel, just obvious stuff in alarmist tones. 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!

PaulRobinson 7mo ago

$93 billion over 13 years doesn't feel like a great deal for a program that has started to align around a single person's ego, when most of the US is struggling to make ends meet. 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.

gedy 7mo ago
We handed out 300 billion in cash payments alone for COVID stimulus, this is not that crazy especially if you factor in the knowledge and skills put to work and retained.
- g947o 7mo ago
  One is real cash going into the hands of ordinary people for everyday purchases, which has proven (in various studies) to have helped parents/families and the financially struggled. 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.
  - gedy 7mo ago
    The money was not vaporized by aerospace companies, it's largely spent in US on salaries, subcontractors, etc. Not against stimulus but to call out the amount in comparison is reasonable.
stickfigure 7mo ago
I'd rather spend it on high speed rail projects.
- zabzonk 7mo ago
  Come and live in the UK :-(

voidfunc 7mo ago

Been there; done that. 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.

Avicebron 7mo ago
> the cost of everything thanks to a poorly planned war against Iran. The war in Iran doesn't help at all. But it's a much broader problem.
whackernews 7mo ago
Yeh how are we all going to keep the air con on full blast and get our food delivered to our doorstep through summer! We’re all a bunch of idiots man let some of us go to the moon for gods sake.
Gagarin1917 7mo ago
This just isn’t true, people have tons of interests beyond “things that are useful” and “trying to figure out how to deal with the cost of everything.” 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.
starkparker 7mo ago
When Apollo 8 went up in December 1968, the US was near the peak of its involvement in the expensive and poorly planned Vietnam war, inflation had been rising in the US for three years and had hit 7.2% in October, the doomed, corrupt, and paranoid Republican president-elect had ran on lowering the price of hamburgers and medical care but was actively trying to manipulate the Supreme Court's composition behind the scenes, Israel was bombing its neighbors, control over the Panama Canal was being contested, the Hong Kong Flu epidemic was winding down, popular news was gripped by a kidnapping story involving a celebrity, and the NTSB was struggling to explain why so many passenger aircraft were being involved in fatal crashes and collisions with ground structures

palata 7mo ago

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes. 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.

outworlder 7mo ago
> it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life. 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.
- palata 7mo ago
  > That's such a cynical viewpoint. We are not doing this so that astronauts can have fun. 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).

eigenrick 7mo ago

So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics (https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....)

cyanydeez 7mo ago
Given how incurious 99% of the elected american government is, the amount of enthusiasm has a very low ceiling.
whackernews 7mo ago
[flagged]
0xf00ff00f 7mo ago
This is the first time humans go beyond LEO in my lifetime, so personally I'm pretty excited.
- ribs 7mo ago
  I know we're not really supposed to say stuff like this on HN, but: hells to the yeah
outworlder 7mo ago
Sure, you may look at it from that perspective. Or, you could look into it as restoring a capability that we used to have, and potentially enable further, more interesting missions. 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.
- skeeter2020 7mo ago
  I'm just not that jazzed on what we could possibly learn. I can go on a big road trip and eat, sleep (but probably not poop) in my minivan; what does that teach me about moving to a new city or country? I can drive across the country and do a loop around Houston's ring road; that tells me nothing about what it's like to live there. 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.

plusfour 7mo ago

i don't care

trhway 7mo ago

we're going back to Moon and going to Mars too on Starship, and it is just a normal roadmap of the SpaceX. And that makes me excited about space future - normalcy of it just being a business, a good profitable business. Where is existence or not of Artemis wouldn't change much our space future. 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47583438

hniszionist 7mo ago

[flagged]

autoexec 7mo ago

"Back to the moon" sounds deceptive since we're not actually going to the moon, we're just sending a rocket around it. An actual moon landing will get a lot more attention. What's far more impressive about this launch to me is that it will be the farthest out into space people have been. I think the NASA PR team would have done better making that the headline rather than all this "to the moon!" talk

lisper 7mo ago

Because we are not going back to the moon. A flyby is going to the moon in the same way that driving by the Anaheim exit on I-5 is going to Disneyland.

joelshep 7mo ago
Did Apollo 8 go to the moon?
- lisper 7mo ago
  Nope. Came close, though Apollo 10 came closer. But there's a reason that Apollo 11 is the one everyone remembers.

deleted 7mo ago

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sys_64738 7mo ago

Pink Floyd did it in the 1970s.

krapp 7mo ago

[flagged]

breve 7mo ago

> The Apollo program was the triple-back-handspring exclamation mark on a century of American technological transformations, during which Americans had electrified their cities, filled their streets with cars and their skies with airplanes, split atoms, and invented digital computers. 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.

Gagarin1917 7mo ago
During the Apollo missions, the US was melting babies in Vietnam, amongst other war crimes. 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.
- throw0101c 7mo ago
  Commentary at the time: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_on_the_Moon
  - UncleMeat 7mo ago
    An absolute classic.
JohnTHaller 7mo ago
Don't forget blowing up boats we think might be drugs and then purposely killing the survivors on the orders of the self-proclaimed US Secretary of War. "no quarter, no mercy"
- vkou 7mo ago

jbattle 7mo ago

I just want to say it blows my mind we're likely to literally land on the moon before we get a proper KSP 2

Tadpole9181 7mo ago
Why? It's very likely we will never get a "proper" KSP 2. And that was pretty clear from KSP 1 through the acquisition to the multiple studio transfers

Gagarin1917 7mo ago

The basic truth is, the vast majority of people couldn’t give less of a fuck about space and space exploration. 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.

TrackerFF 7mo ago

I think there's a war in the middle east. And a circus back home. Think those are hogging the spotlight right now.

Gagarin1917 7mo ago
Would you have been uninterested in Apollo at the time because of the Vietnam war? Or are you maybe just generally uninterested in space exploration?
- sph 7mo ago
  There was no social media and high-speed internet in your pocket during the Vietnam war. We are literally bombarded with information every waking moment of our lives, and consume more highly-emotional information to take a break from too much information.
  - Gagarin1917 7mo ago
    Which is why allowing oneself to appreciate something as positive and inspiring as the Artemis Program is so important these days.

bwoah 7mo ago

https://archive.is/mwlfi https://archive.is/mwlfi

deleted 7mo ago

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tayo42 7mo ago

There's alot off reasons to not be interested other people are listing them. Space exploration in general has been taken over by billionaires as their hobby becasue they have to much money. I find it hard to care about someone else's expensive toys.

eeixlk 7mo ago

Trump attempted to significantly decrease NASAs budgets and cancel missions so this is happening despite him, and I cant feel joy for this when we are putting people in cages, manipulating stock markets, entering pointless wars, and raising prices of everything while Billionares massively increase their wealth through technically-legal manipulations of the system. This feels like a sad memory of what used to be more than anything else.

rtcode_io 7mo ago

People think it's a fake show for distraction.

tetrisgm 7mo ago

I’m probably going to get downvoted, but two things: Firstly, I thought ok great we’re sending people there again. Finally. I mean we did this in the 60s but cool that we’re resuming I guess. 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.

charlie90 7mo ago

China built out their high speed rail for $300B over about the same period. Artemis is 1/3rd the cost of that. Theres lots of impressive engineering to do thats also cool and useful to ordinary people. Going to the moon is just vanity.

JohnTHaller 7mo ago

We're not going to the moon. We're going around the moon. You wouldn't say you went to Chicago if you drove in a circle around it without entering the city.

razorbeamz 7mo ago

It hasn't been very well marketed. NASA lost a lot of their budget and they're not spending so much on outreach. I didn't know it was happening at all until launch day.

casefields 7mo ago
Losing 1.1% is a lot in your mind? Really? https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-year-2026-spending-bills-nsf-nasa-and-doe https://aas.org/posts/news/2026/01/congress-passes-fiscal-ye...
ajam1507 7mo ago
They should be spending exactly $0 on marketing. They're sending people around the moon in a giant rocket ship. It sells itself.
- krapp 7mo ago
  >They're sending people around the moon in a giant rocket ship. It sells itself. It actually doesn't. It didn't even "sell itself" the first time. Apollo required a massive national propaganda campaign framing the space race in terms of an existential war against communist annihilation to get people to even care - and people still stopped caring once the news stopped being sensational.

artlessmax 7mo ago

https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?si=33U1qlIRFihFqc5- https://youtu.be/goh2x_G0ct4?si=33U1qlIRFihFqc5-

mbgerring 7mo ago

Probably because the first time we did it we were an optimistic country with a good economy and a bright future in front of us?

joelshep 7mo ago
Hardly. Remembering the end of 1968, when Apollo 8 made the first manned voyage out of earth's orbit, and orbited the moon: 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."
slavik81 7mo ago
Not everyone was so optimistic. Many people argued that the money spent going to the moon would be better spent on problems here on Earth. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(website).pdf/51 https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:Tom_Lehrer_song_lyrics_(...

orbital-decay 7mo ago

The real answer is that one of a kind single-launch Moon mission is not all that interesting. If you read anyone who participated in the Apollo program (engineers or mission control people like Gene Kranz), everyone knew that the only thing that kept the program afloat was novelty. It's not there anymore. I would say JPL is way too underrated compared to the moon flights, as it's the main reason we know so much about the Solar System. 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).

Traubenfuchs 7mo ago

Humanity did something better (humans on the moon) decades ago and now we are struggling to fly around the moon. 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.

deleted 7mo ago

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trashface 7mo ago

Used to love space stuff, although some of it was horrible (old enough to remember watching the challenger blow up on TV as a pre-teen). Don't really understand this moon effort. Space is uniquely hostile to humans, our tech just isn't ready IMO and probably won't be for 100 years. Our personas certainly aren't ready - I can tolerate far more isolation than most people, I often go 1-2 weeks without any real human contact at all, routinely go days without speaking to anyone. And yet the idea of living on a moon or mars colony gives me serious pause for the isolation it would involve. Space station has a different problem in that i'd be wanting to push people out of the airlock after a few weeks, or eject myself that way. 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.

lifestyleguru 7mo ago

The American passive participation in what is widely considered as a genocide, and an active invasion of another country without a reason are all more spectacular. Overall the world is deeply tired of their shit.

siliconpotato 7mo ago

1) nobody's landing on the moon this 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

expedition32 7mo ago
Yeah the flag waving is very off putting. Why would non USians care? It's like the Superbowl. More interesting is the possible Chinese moon landing. It would be their first and a good gauge to monitor their progress as a superpower.

erelong 7mo ago

Too many other pressing issues on Earth

drivingmenuts 7mo ago

I think the intent is there. I do not have faith that people, politics or events will cooperate with us. I also think this is NASA's last hurrah before space flight is subsumed by commercial interests, which will be the end of the dream of space science for the common good of mankind.

tsoukase 7mo ago

It is a major event but only in some terms: 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.

adjejmxbdjdn 7mo ago

What exactly are we supposed to get excited about? - The headline mission “Going to the moon” was done 60 years ago - Any scientific research could be done better and cheaper with robots. No humans required. - If it’s supposed to be a step forward in space travel, well, it’s just a step forward. Let’s get real space travel going and people might be excited for that. - If it’s the technological progress then we are seeing a lot of technological progress all the time. It’s questionable that any of it is making our lives better. So, what are people supposed to be excited about?

npilk 7mo ago

To everyone saying "we've done this before" or "we're not even landing" - we have sent humans to the Moon a total of 9 times. This is the 10th. Nobody has been out there in 50+ years. We've only landed on the Moon 6 times, and this mission is a stepping stone to future manned landings. Do people really feel like "yeah, we went 9 times, that's enough, no need to ever send anyone again"?

ajam1507 7mo ago
Yes, it's dangerous and the benefits of sending people to the Moon and Mars are few.
eudamoniac 7mo ago
Not "no need to ever send anyone again" but it's certainly not very interesting at this point. Maybe it's worth the spend, maybe not, but either way I don't find doing something a 10th time very intriguing. It first happened in the 60s. My father isn't even old enough to remember it. Doing the same thing as then, today, is very hard to care about. Might as well tell me that we're inventing a 10th form factor for a vinyl record.

dtagames 7mo ago

Panem et circenses for the space age.

insane_dreamer 7mo ago

Maybe if we Americans had proper healthcare, that wasn't getting gutted to fund a pointless war that is both killing people and damaging our own economy, it would be easier to get excited about going back to the moon.

Desafinado 7mo ago

It's hard to get excited about an organization spending ?? on a pointless mission that's happening because of organizational inertia when kids don't have functional textbooks at school.

poulpy123 7mo ago

"Why isn't everyone as obsessed as me about my hobbies?" Well maybe because the context here is not great and we don't have much time and energy to focus on these useless endeavors

burnt-resistor 7mo ago

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