4 ms·

I have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspir

I have to admit, I've been an Artemis hater ($4 billion per launch lol) but the experience of watching people go back around the Moon has been incredibly inspiring, and it proves to me that maybe we can still do hard things

jameslk 6mo ago
> $4 billion per launch lol The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day (~$3 billion/day[0]). Not that adding to the debt helps at all, but the old proverb about being penny wise and pound foolish seems relevant 0. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951
- ToucanLoucan 6mo ago
  Also we spend that much every 4 days we're in Iran, and that's only ONE of our neo-colonialist irons in the fire, as it were. If you want to make the US financially solvent, cut defense. Defense LAPS every other budget category. Whether you want to take the conservative position on why that is (our allies freeload on our defense spending) or the Progressive one (the U.S. is an empire in decline and every major empire through history has spent vast sums to maintain itself why would the U.S. be different) doesn't change the fact that our military budgets exceed over a dozen other nations' combined, the vast majority of whom are allies.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
  - Jblx2 6mo ago
    >Defense LAPS every other budget category. I suppose it matters how you lump things, but for federal spending: - $678 B, Social Security - $478 B, Medicare - $425 B, Net Interest - $419 B, Health - $412 B, National Defense - $320 B, Income Security - $184 B, Veterans Benefits and Services - $75 B, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services - $53 B, Transportation - $43 B, Administration of Justice - $15 B, Other https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
    - fwip 6mo ago
      I think the common miscommunication here is that defense is the largest part of the US discretionary budget (about half overall), but that doesn't include those non-negotiable things like Social Security, Medicare, etc .
      - actionfromafar 6mo ago
        Trump doesn't want to do Medicare etc anymore. The states can do that now.
    - anon84873628 6mo ago
      "Please note: Values displayed are outlays, which is money that is actually paid out by the government. Other sources, such as USAspending, may display spending as obligations, which is money that is promised to be paid, but may not yet be delivered." The Biden administration's FY2025 defense budget request was $850 billion for the DoD, with the total national security budget reaching over $895 billion. The FY2026 proposal submitted by the Trump admin is 1.5 trillion for DoD.
    - JKCalhoun 6mo ago
      Not all of those are discretionary spending? Maybe not equivalent to include, for example, Social Security.
      - shimman 6mo ago
        It is relevant if you want to attack one of the greatest achievements of the new deal and hate working Americans.
        MichaelDickens 6mo ago
        People can have motivations for wanting to cut back Social Security other than "they hate working Americans". I would prefer commenters make more of an effort to understand their opponents' perspective rather than painting them in the worst light possible.
  - typeofhuman 6mo ago
    > LAPS every other budget category. Except for social security, health, medicare, debt interest
- icegreentea2 6mo ago
  The absolute cost isn't the problem, it's the value that we're getting from it. SLS and Artemis are both incredibly expensive and ramshackle programs, and regardless of how bad the rest of the USG might be in terms of their cost, or value, if you are a true space fan and a true American space fan, you should want this little corner of humanity to hold itself to a higher standard. Acceptance of over costing and under delivering is exactly why the US is stuck with SpaceX as its prime space launch provider. It's only through the miracle of the vanity of billionaires that there's even a realistic second choice (Blue Origin) that might develop. It's also this type of attitude that let's us be in a situation where we honestly don't know how well the heat shield will work on reentry (SLS launches are so expensive, and so slow to build and prep to launch, that we cannot fit in a uncrewed mission between 1 and 2 to test or validate fixes or models). If Artemis as a program succeeds, it will be despite the incredible graft, pork, and ass covering, not because of it. I want Artemis to succeed because the achievement will be beautiful and amazing, and I want everyone to be safe and sound. I want Artemis to fail, to force a reckoning. I still believe that America has great things to offer to the world, but it's not going to be able to do that by muddling it's way through and cobbling together random pork filled programs into a vaguely inspiring shape.
  - trothamel 6mo ago
    This is about to change. New NASA administrator Isaacman has redone the Artemis program. The changes were announced at the Ignition event a few weeks ago: https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ If you read one thing, read the sides on building the moon base: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-the-moon-base.pdf?emrc=69d5956c1ab7e https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-t... The goals it to fly often - adding a SLS launch to 2027 and a second launch to 2028. This drops the cost-per-launch, which is mostly fixed. It redoes SLS to make it less expensive and more capable. It moves the lunar space station down to the surface of the moon. And it's budgeted at $10B/3 years, which fits into NASA's budget. Isaacman took the Artemis program and fixed it. The reckoning came, and it's looking good.
    - icegreentea2 6mo ago
- monkpit 6mo ago
  > The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day Spends, or accrues?
  - bruckie 6mo ago
    Same thing (for now, at least). The U.S. has only defaulted a handful of times, none that I'm aware of since 1971.
  - deleted 6mo ago
    [deleted]
- dogemaster2026 6mo ago
  [flagged]
- pavon 6mo ago
  We spend more on debt interest than we spend on the military or anything really other than social security. That isn't a useful comparison anymore.
system2 6mo ago
[flagged]
- Fourier864 6mo ago
  Ok I realize you're making a point, but 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year, that's like half of the US GDP
  - JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
    > 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year At SLS prices, yes. Falcon Heavy runs at $141mm per launch; 3,650 launches would cost half a trillion.
  - system2 6mo ago
    Not as much, but we were okay to spend $12T on the Iraq war.
sublinear 6mo ago
The longer term value of having moon outposts for observation, mining, etc. will pay off massively. This is way bigger than just putting people on the moon or hubris. It's the prerequisite for everything we've also said about Mars. Elon just muddied the waters so much that people are so negative about anything else.
chrismcb 6mo ago
Ignoring the fact that we aren't using money for rocket fuel (that is people are benefitting from us spending that money) the potential upside is immense. There are a time of resources available in the asteroids and a moon base makes mining those resources easier and cheaper.
moralestapia 6mo ago
>we can still do hard things Absolutely! What do you have in mind?
delta_p_delta_x 6mo ago
> $4 billion per launch This is not a lot of money on a nation-state scale. It's equal to giving every person in the US about US$12.
- dogemaster2026 6mo ago
  Newsom, Mamdani, please stay away.
- dbvn 6mo ago
  *taking* $12 from every person in the US... But I still think it's worth it.
dogemaster2026 6mo ago
[flagged]
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > There's no track laid Wow, you aren't kidding [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_High-Speed_Rail#CP_4_(Tulare/Kern_%E2%80%93_Poplar_Avenue) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_Hig...
lostlogin 6mo ago
> $4 billion per launch If Trump gets his $1.5T military budget, that would be about the military spend per day I think?
- jaspa99 6mo ago
  And 9 hours of entitlement spend
themafia 6mo ago
> $4 billion per launch lol $1.3 billion for the mission hardware. $2.2 billion for the single use SLS. $0.5 billion for the launch pad. > watching people go back around the Moon Two of the missions were actually meant to land. One of them still may.
jaspa99 6mo ago
Those $4 billion per launch are about 9 hours of entitlement spending (social security & health programs).
- shimman 6mo ago
  Why is entitlement spending bad? Do you think the government should only give welfare to corporations and not people?

jameslk 6mo ago

> $4 billion per launch lol The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day (~$3 billion/day[0]). Not that adding to the debt helps at all, but the old proverb about being penny wise and pound foolish seems relevant 0. https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951 https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61951

ToucanLoucan 6mo ago
Also we spend that much every 4 days we're in Iran, and that's only ONE of our neo-colonialist irons in the fire, as it were. If you want to make the US financially solvent, cut defense. Defense LAPS every other budget category. Whether you want to take the conservative position on why that is (our allies freeload on our defense spending) or the Progressive one (the U.S. is an empire in decline and every major empire through history has spent vast sums to maintain itself why would the U.S. be different) doesn't change the fact that our military budgets exceed over a dozen other nations' combined, the vast majority of whom are allies.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
- Jblx2 6mo ago
  >Defense LAPS every other budget category. I suppose it matters how you lump things, but for federal spending: - $678 B, Social Security - $478 B, Medicare - $425 B, Net Interest - $419 B, Health - $412 B, National Defense - $320 B, Income Security - $184 B, Veterans Benefits and Services - $75 B, Education, Training, Employment, and Social Services - $53 B, Transportation - $43 B, Administration of Justice - $15 B, Other https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/ https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/feder...
  - fwip 6mo ago
    I think the common miscommunication here is that defense is the largest part of the US discretionary budget (about half overall), but that doesn't include those non-negotiable things like Social Security, Medicare, etc .
    - actionfromafar 6mo ago
      Trump doesn't want to do Medicare etc anymore. The states can do that now.
  - anon84873628 6mo ago
    "Please note: Values displayed are outlays, which is money that is actually paid out by the government. Other sources, such as USAspending, may display spending as obligations, which is money that is promised to be paid, but may not yet be delivered." The Biden administration's FY2025 defense budget request was $850 billion for the DoD, with the total national security budget reaching over $895 billion. The FY2026 proposal submitted by the Trump admin is 1.5 trillion for DoD.
  - JKCalhoun 6mo ago
    Not all of those are discretionary spending? Maybe not equivalent to include, for example, Social Security.
    - shimman 6mo ago
      It is relevant if you want to attack one of the greatest achievements of the new deal and hate working Americans.
      - MichaelDickens 6mo ago
        People can have motivations for wanting to cut back Social Security other than "they hate working Americans". I would prefer commenters make more of an effort to understand their opponents' perspective rather than painting them in the worst light possible.
- typeofhuman 6mo ago
  > LAPS every other budget category. Except for social security, health, medicare, debt interest
icegreentea2 6mo ago
The absolute cost isn't the problem, it's the value that we're getting from it. SLS and Artemis are both incredibly expensive and ramshackle programs, and regardless of how bad the rest of the USG might be in terms of their cost, or value, if you are a true space fan and a true American space fan, you should want this little corner of humanity to hold itself to a higher standard. Acceptance of over costing and under delivering is exactly why the US is stuck with SpaceX as its prime space launch provider. It's only through the miracle of the vanity of billionaires that there's even a realistic second choice (Blue Origin) that might develop. It's also this type of attitude that let's us be in a situation where we honestly don't know how well the heat shield will work on reentry (SLS launches are so expensive, and so slow to build and prep to launch, that we cannot fit in a uncrewed mission between 1 and 2 to test or validate fixes or models). If Artemis as a program succeeds, it will be despite the incredible graft, pork, and ass covering, not because of it. I want Artemis to succeed because the achievement will be beautiful and amazing, and I want everyone to be safe and sound. I want Artemis to fail, to force a reckoning. I still believe that America has great things to offer to the world, but it's not going to be able to do that by muddling it's way through and cobbling together random pork filled programs into a vaguely inspiring shape.
- trothamel 6mo ago
  This is about to change. New NASA administrator Isaacman has redone the Artemis program. The changes were announced at the Ignition event a few weeks ago: https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ If you read one thing, read the sides on building the moon base: https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-the-moon-base.pdf?emrc=69d5956c1ab7e https://www.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/2-building-t... The goals it to fly often - adding a SLS launch to 2027 and a second launch to 2028. This drops the cost-per-launch, which is mostly fixed. It redoes SLS to make it less expensive and more capable. It moves the lunar space station down to the surface of the moon. And it's budgeted at $10B/3 years, which fits into NASA's budget. Isaacman took the Artemis program and fixed it. The reckoning came, and it's looking good.
  - icegreentea2 6mo ago
monkpit 6mo ago
> The US spends almost that much on net debt interest each day Spends, or accrues?
- bruckie 6mo ago
  Same thing (for now, at least). The U.S. has only defaulted a handful of times, none that I'm aware of since 1971.
- deleted 6mo ago
  [deleted]
dogemaster2026 6mo ago
[flagged]
pavon 6mo ago
We spend more on debt interest than we spend on the military or anything really other than social security. That isn't a useful comparison anymore.

system2 6mo ago

[flagged]

Fourier864 6mo ago
Ok I realize you're making a point, but 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year, that's like half of the US GDP
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
  > 10 launches a day comes out to about $15 trillion a year At SLS prices, yes. Falcon Heavy runs at $141mm per launch; 3,650 launches would cost half a trillion.
- system2 6mo ago
  Not as much, but we were okay to spend $12T on the Iraq war.

sublinear 6mo ago

The longer term value of having moon outposts for observation, mining, etc. will pay off massively. This is way bigger than just putting people on the moon or hubris. It's the prerequisite for everything we've also said about Mars. Elon just muddied the waters so much that people are so negative about anything else.

chrismcb 6mo ago

Ignoring the fact that we aren't using money for rocket fuel (that is people are benefitting from us spending that money) the potential upside is immense. There are a time of resources available in the asteroids and a moon base makes mining those resources easier and cheaper.

moralestapia 6mo ago

>we can still do hard things Absolutely! What do you have in mind?

delta_p_delta_x 6mo ago

> $4 billion per launch This is not a lot of money on a nation-state scale. It's equal to giving every person in the US about US$12.

dogemaster2026 6mo ago
Newsom, Mamdani, please stay away.
dbvn 6mo ago
*taking* $12 from every person in the US... But I still think it's worth it.

dogemaster2026 6mo ago

[flagged]

JumpCrisscross 6mo ago
> There's no track laid Wow, you aren't kidding [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_High-Speed_Rail#CP_4_(Tulare/Kern_%E2%80%93_Poplar_Avenue) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Construction_of_California_Hig...

lostlogin 6mo ago

> $4 billion per launch If Trump gets his $1.5T military budget, that would be about the military spend per day I think?

jaspa99 6mo ago
And 9 hours of entitlement spend

themafia 6mo ago

> $4 billion per launch lol $1.3 billion for the mission hardware. $2.2 billion for the single use SLS. $0.5 billion for the launch pad. > watching people go back around the Moon Two of the missions were actually meant to land. One of them still may.

jaspa99 6mo ago

Those $4 billion per launch are about 9 hours of entitlement spending (social security & health programs).

shimman 6mo ago
Why is entitlement spending bad? Do you think the government should only give welfare to corporations and not people?