Basically any mission that sends actual human beings beyond low earth orbit before we have our shit figured out down here is a vanity project. It's exponentially more expensive than unmanned craft and extremely dangerous for the astronauts, but provides no additional benefit to society vs. unmanned craft.

The fantasy of colonizing space is pushed by the ruling class to excuse the destruction of our environment on earth. Capitalism is our great filter and we will never leave this planet as long as it exists.

When I've brought up my excitement about Artemis II with liberal friends and family, I've gotten from them the exact sort of dismissive crankiness and talk about "wastes of money" as you're doing now.

The thing is, if we want to abolish money, we should try not to think of wastes of government money to begin with. We aren't DOGE, right? We can think of wastes of government resources, but in that case how do you define waste? The way I see it, a waste of resources is basically anything that furthers an oppressive system. It's wasteful because you're hurting people to prop up a system that's already on borrowed time.

This is the big difference between Artemis II and the military: You can argue that Artemis II vaguely furthers oppressive systems because it's a vanity project slash display of strength of a dying empire, a way to push the narrative that capitalists can destroy the Earth because "we can just colonize the stars" when they're done, or the first steps to putting nukes on the moon, or something like that; but I'd argue that manned space travel will exist under any current or future mode of production, that the nukes aren't on the moon yet, and that everything narrative about Artemis II can be countered with our own narrative.

If there was no Artemis II there still wouldn't be "money for healthcare and housing".

Edit: A flaw in my thinking pointed out elsewhere in this thread is that the mission essentially serves as a middleman for transferring superprofits to Lockheed, Boeing etc. So even if the mission itself doesn't hurt anyone, it still gives funding to people who do, and to that extent the choice of contractors if nothing else is wasteful.

I feel kinda depressed, to be honest. I'd been looking forward to this my whole life, but I can't really enjoy it now because of the Context. It stinks. Maybe I should take a break from this site or something.

You're being overly cranky imo. Yeah the space money could go to more humanist projects but the space money isn't very much! NASA's budget has steadily dropped since Apollo and is less than half a percent of the overall federal budget.

We spend more on corn subsidies.

Housing we should spend more on for sure, but healthcare would be cheaper under a single payer model, so the issue isn't lack of funds.

Could the space money be spent more wisely? Definitely, but I have a hard time agreeing with takes that advocate for shrinking the space money pile.

There's definitely bigger wastes of money to be upset about than anything going on at NASA. Getting mad at Artemis II is alienating yourself from your peers and not being productive. Steer the conversation to how much SpaceX and Musk suck.

You want to be ahead of the curve but still be on the curve. Otherwise you're just being an Ultra and not helping anyone.

it's a real dying empire project. "oh, shit, the Chinese are up and coming, and we aren't able to actually deliver on any of our grand ideas - let's prove we've still sort of got it by doing something dumber and worse than we were able to do 50 years ago. And let's cut every corner on the way."

You know what, maybe because it's a Monday but I'm going to go off the deep end with you.

The biggest argument is that NASA does not manufacture stuff so most of that money is going to contractors, to the same aerospace industry that's making weapons and bombing people. People seem to think that NASA is a different thing than the defense industry and I'm not sure why. I went to Kennedy last year and Boeing owns the big space shuttle hangar (now being converted by private hands for other projects). Space X, Blue Origin, and Virgin all have their own infrastructure there. The old stuff is largely dismantled or being dismantled. Most of this money is not going to government employees nor is some last remnant of feel-good Keynesian spending. It's just more graft for Boeing, Lockheed, etc.

getting mad at NASA doing stuff is generally crank shit. There's like 6 Trillion dollars per year for war, "we" could fund literally everything else and still have the most lethal military in the world for that.

iirc what the government spends on healthcare now is more than what a public system should cost.

I studied Astronomy in university and I find Artemis II to be somewhere between pointless and actively bad. The best I can figure is it might inspire some kids to be interested in space. The worst is pretty much everything you've already said. From what I understand, the science they'll be doing is more cheaply done by a combination of unmanned lunar missions and experiments in Earth's orbit, like on the ISS.

The only reason the US is doing this is to try to get ahead of China and Russia's own space programs, and eventually annex and weaponize the moon against them. Opposing the US space program is valid Revolutionary Defeatism, imo.

I hate the Artemis program but I love the Chang'e program.

Artemis is flag waving nonsense on a gratuitously expensive dead end rocket with an almost completely untested crew module gambling lives on Senate graft and techbro nonsense, with no long term plan.

Chang'e (and the upcoming International Lunar Research Station) are careful, well planned steps towards long term research and habitation on the moon, in cooperation with the global South.

I can't be bothered to give a shit either way. There are way bigger wastes of money right now being used to actively murder people.

Whitey's on the moon

Nah, they're stunting on Musk, and we can afford a modest steady effort to increase long term space capabilites without sacrificing socialist programs on Earth. The Soviets understood this, as does China now.

There is a decent argument to be made for that increase in capabilities. If we can get enough stuff up there to begin Orbital and Lunar manufacture, a lot of possibilities for energy generation and resource use open up. That will ultimately help people on earth, and eventually people off earth too.

"There will be apple blossoms on Mars" as the old Soviet Cosmonaut song said.

Why is the assumption that if Artemis 2 didn't get the funds it would have gone to healthcare?

It could have gone to Lockheed Martin. Heck it's probably a dual purpose project to begin with because why wouldn't they put guns in space. There is a Space Force, isn't there? The biggest waste of American Worker Resources is MIC.

And now I'm reading online and apparently the administration has already slashed NASA budget, but they're quiet about it, apparently they're focusing on slashing the Science department the most, wouldn't be surprised if they want to transform NASA into Star Wars.

I hear you but damn there are so many worse, more expensive, and actively harmful things to be against that actively railing against Artemis doesn't seem useful.

But you may enjoy an old classic song, Whitey on the Moon by Gil Scott-Heron

With you on this one. In general the space stuff the way it's done in the West seems like manufacturing false hope about a humanity in space while our home is roasting due to climate change.

I am probably doompilled from seeing how all the tech bros talk about space, but I really don't care as long as on this planet immense suffering, exploitation and environmental destruction just goes on.

There's no planet B. This space travel stuff is just like religion in the way it gives people an out: "Suffering now does not matter because you will go to heaven/Boiling the planet doesn't matter, we'll live in Mars".

The money isn’t exactly wasted if it pays workers who then immediately spend it on means of subsistence. From that macro point of view, the money is circulated not destroyed. (Anyway, this money is printed. It is not really scarce in the normal sense.)

Of course some (large?) fraction also lines the pockets of the aerospace/defense contractors, and that of the bank which finances the worker’s mortgage. That’s just capitalism being capitalism.

Your complaint reduces to what we already know: the priorities of the US government are fucked. But that is true with or without a space program. Exploration of space isn’t the thing holding back the social welfare.

There are two distinct concepts that sometimes conflict, which are "being right" or "being effective".

Your opinion isn't necessarily wrong, but it's probably not a strategic topic to discuss with liberals. Being a downer generally isn't. We're better off trying to redirect anger than undermine happiness.

Is someone here able to diagnose my crankiness and explain why this is actually a good use of resources? (Will also accept echo-chamber validation and ways to use this to increase class consciousness, if offered.)

"Space exploration is a waste of time and money" is nowhere near close to crank shit where I am. If anything, that's the majority/plurality sentiment. Being enthusiastic about space exploration is the crank position.

I don't know if you're in a "people care about space exploration" bubble or if I'm in a "people don't care about space exploration" bubble. I guess it just shows how trying to judge the crankiness of one's particular beliefs is a tricky exercise because one person's crank belief is another person's mundane belief.

Nah, I don't really care that much about Artemis II either. Western space flights and missions largely just seems to me as an ultra rich playground and an excuse for destroying our planet. The Chinese Space program is more interesting to me.

I'm more pissed that we've done this shit before and now we have to start all over again? We literally had a space program in the 60's and 70's just to try and flex on the Soviets. Maybe if we had just cooperated, we could be living in the Jetsons right now.

XKCD 1232 which is the height of white liberal discourse on this.

White people don't deserve getting excited about their own space flight and if they are they're racist. Everyone else: its pretty damn cool and expression of the technological and organizational achievement of society.

I'm a taikonaut enjoyer first before I ever lick the boots of NASA and I love Yuri (Gagarin).

less off the deep end than me, i wanted it to blow up on the pad. Anyone that bears the flag of the USA is an iredeemable villain

Frankly, asteroid mining would be better. Still here ya go:

"There's plenty of housework to be done here on Earth, and our commitment to it must be steadfast. But we're the kind of species that needs a frontier-for fundamental biological reasons. Every time humanity stretches itself and turns a new corner, it receives a jolt of productive vitality that can carry it for centuries. There's a new world next door. (Mars) And we know how to get there."

• Carl Sagan, Pale blue dot

I don't think so, I dislike Artemis II because the United States is attacking Iran and bringing death and misery all over the world. What is there too care about while that is going on? NASA and it's space missions be damned, it's a part of the same institution waging war on the rest of the world.

The counter take I heard - and this one was for Mars missions - was "sure the money could be better spent on Earth, but would it?"

Chances are, especially the Trump II administration, would spend the NASA budget on more bombs against Gazans or Iranians if they could have. In fact, they've cut NASA's budget I think announced literally the day after the Artemis II launch. Out there, it's doing Stuff ™️ - and unlike Apollo 11 there's some real science theyre gonna do this time so its not total vanity - and its not being spent on bombing other countries hospitals and schools.

I'm not mad at NASA I'm mad at the US. So anything that it touches is tainted, if that makes sense.

it's not a lot of money in grand scheme of things, it probably portends nuclear weapons on the moon in the not so distant future due to cuck disease (of being porkies) correctly identified by usians in their adversaries.

so somewhat deep-end?

I think disliking it makes sense but it's kind of pointless to complain about, normally. It could still be worth pointing out that it's extremely political and just Trump and friends trying to boost their image.

The empire will use everything, especially everything related to rocketry for evil. This is the reality and if acknowledging this counts me as having gone over the deep end or something I don't care. DTA, unlimited challengers on the first world.