The Artemis mission cost four billion dollars.

The FY-2027 defense budget will be 1.5 trillion. could cut billions of dollars without seriously affecting the function of the military (although fuck the military, they deserve exactly $0.00 and all need to be put on trial for their part in this horrible Empire).

It's not because of the Artemis mission specifically that we "cannot" feed people and heal the sick. Like the cost of ending world hunger and poverty, the cost of this mission in comparison to the resources the capitalists control is trivial.

It's because the system is deliberately designed to be unwilling (antagonistic, in fact!) to do these things no matter how much money or resources are ever actually available.

And it's happening now as a fucking distraction from the casualties of the war on Iran, and I don't even have words for how monstrous that is, or how angry I am at the people embracing this propaganda campaign as an "apolitical triumph of the human species".

It's probably a coincidence that it's happening now. This mission has been years in the making. The media is using the event as propaganda to distract from the Iran war. That being said, I will not argue that it's apolitical, nor will I argue that it's not propaganda at all. Generically, the point of televising it is to make look good, i.e. to paper over the sins of Empire.

I honestly don't disagree with the rest of what you wrote and I'm even skeptical of the scientific utility of this particular mission, but I believe that a blanket opposition to spaceflight and space research generically is reactionary.