Artemis program and the moon
Why go to the moon?
There is no strife, no prejudice, no national conflict in outer space as yet. Its hazards are hostile to us all. Its conquest deserves the best of all mankind, and its opportunity for peaceful cooperation may never come again. But why, some say, the moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas?
We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
These words have been burned into our collective consciousness, and yet here we are, 60 years later, with the Artemis program, and we are going back to the moon, again! But this is not the moon program we wanted. And it's not the moon program we need nor is it executed by a nation state that we can be proud of. Im sorry, but currently going on the idea that USA is showing itself to be a shining beacon of science, reason and democracy is just not true; If you dont find my opinion relatable then I suggest you take a look around you, does not matter into which direction as its all on fire right now.
Then again anyone who has studied the history in the middle 1900's of the United States and the Apollo space program should not be surprised that going to the moon in the 1970's was not actually something that Kennedy himself even was committed to and at one point even actively tried to put the genie back into the bottle. It was his subsequent assassination and diplomatic tensions of the cold war era that forced the US to go to the moon.
Objectively it was the right thing to do in 1960 and 1970. Our world would literally be very different without the technology that came out of the Apollo program and was later on minituarized to fit on to your palm for example. And that is just one example of the technologies that saw the light of day back then and have ever since been improved upon and are now an integral part of our daily lives. Freeze dried food, CMOS sensors and SLR cameras, memory foam, cordless power tools, scratch resistant lenses, fire-resistant fabrics, water filters, joysticks, integrated circuits, grooved pavement to prevent hydroplaning on the highways and minituarization of computers!
The cost of the Apollo program was subjectively speaking astronomical, but objectively speaking it was a bargain for the return on investment in terms of technological spin-offs and scientific knowledge gained. Although I can see why it was also proposed and that the money could have been used to solve some of the pressing issues here on Earth back then, but US could afford it. Mostly because they were the only ones who could afford it. USA came out of the Second World War as the only major industrial power on Earth that was not in ruins and could therefore afford to spend money on things that were not immediately related to survival or rebuilding. USA was also heavily exporting the expertise, technology and materials to Europe and elsewhere after the world wars to help in rebuilding and in return they got a lot of goodwill and influence over the nation states US assisted. The Soviets may have actually outspent the US as a percentage of their GDP, but they paid for their lunar ambitions in blood and breadlines, sacrificing human safety and national stability for a failed moonshot that helped bankrupt their future.
This influence was then cashed in when the world collectively cheered as Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon in 1969. It was a moment of unity for all of mankind, a moment where we all looked up at the sky in awe, suspense and thrilling anticipation of things to come. It was a moment where we all felt a sense of pride in what humanity was capable of achieving when we set our minds to it.
The Artemis problem
Artemis is NASA's program to return humans to the moon. It is a multi-billion dollar program that is currently in its initial manned phase with Artemis II mission launched last night. The program is named after the Greek goddess of the moon, who was the twin sister of Apollo.
Artemis has been gutted as a program. Artemis is an iteration of previous "we are going back to the moon" programs that were also initially gutted by budget cuts and political infighting. The program has been scaled back from its original goals and is now focused on a more limited set of objectives. These objectives are nothing new.
Apollo already did everything that Artemis is now doing again. This brings us nothing new to the table. The only difference is that this time we are going to the moon with private companies and with international partners. Although the scaled down version of Artemis also means that there are less international partners and fewer private companies involved.
Yes, hopefully we get to see the first woman on the Moon, but besides that the Artemis program just rehashes and warms up yesterdays leftovers. It makes no sense. Artemis II is just a shakedown cruise for a technology that will probably never fly again due to inevitable budget cuts and political infighting, again. So the most we will see Im afraid is a first woman orbiting the moon.
Artemis is a gutted stump of a program that had nothing new to bring to the table. It is a pale imitation of the Apollo program, and does not have the public support or admiration of the masses that Apollo had. And partly we can blame this for the fact that US has tarnished itself in the yes of the international community and partly because it has nothing to give to the scientific or engineering communities at large. No new innovations will come out of Artemis how it is currently planned and executed. Maybe, in its most wide scope it would have delivered us to the Mars which would have been a HUGE DEAL and required a lot of innovation, determination and international support to get humanity to the red planet, but because of exactly that reason that Artmis does not enjoy benefit of any of those that will not happen.
Ergo, Artemis is a useless publicity stunt. And as a publicity stunt it is a bad one and will in no way offset the damage done by the US to its reputation in the eyes of the international community and the damage physically inflicted by the resource wars US is currently involved in.
Lets try to find at least something positive
Artemis will inspire. I cant imagine a world where a little kid looks at the moon and does not dream of going there. And Artemis is a step in that direction. Even if it is a small step, it is still a step. And it is a step in the right direction. If the Artemis program manages to inspire a generation of scientists, engineers, and explorers, then it is not a complete waste of everything.
We get to see a first woman orbiting the moon and hopefully to set a foot on the moon too. And this will hopefully courage many young women and girls to get into STEM fields aka The Scully effect.
And of course even though the Space Launch System or the SLS is just pile of recycled Space Shuttle engines and tecnologies, it is still a pretty impressive piece of engineering that required some new challenges to be overcome that spawned solutions that will ripple across the engineering world and influence future technology innovations. The crew capsule Orion if not a pinnacle of current engineering on the field (that distinction goes to Crew Dragon in my humble opinion.) is still a pretty impressive piece of engineering and its service module is a testament to European engineering prowess and to what we can achieve when working together. Yes, comparing Crew Dragon to Orion is like pitting Volkswagen Polo against Chevy Truck. Both are cars, but they are designed for different purposes and are therefore not directly comparable, but a scaled up Polo could probably be a pretty decent truck; look at the Volkswagen Amarok.
Closing words
So yeah, Im not that interested in Artemis. And Im not that excited about going back to the moon either. This surprises me as I am a huge space nerd and have been since I was 7 or 8 years old. I just saw today in the news that Artemis II launched last night and cought myself thinking that, "oh that was today?".