By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I’ve been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just… don’t care at all. I’m not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven’t clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I’m wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
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same here, i dont care about it all, while its interesting it finally happened, its not really exciting news, especially with so much other things going on, which suspiciously happening a the same time to direct attention away , the mission redirecting attention away from more important news.
Personally, for me, I’ve paid attention to it some, but not followed it closely. I think a lot of it is just that I understand it so well and have seen it all before. I love KSP (and KSA is looking great!), and have played it with the real solar system mods. The launch looks better than the game, but everything after the game does better. It can look better (their renders are surprisingly shit still), and I can actually control it.
I love space information and technology, but this is just one more step in it. I can’t follow everything. It’s great that it’s happening, but there’s also a ton more research being done that I don’t even know about. This, while impressive and good, isn’t something new.
I watched the launch after it happened at 2x speed and saw some parts of the descent. My phone wallpaper has been set t9 pictures they took. I’m just not that interested in following it live. I know what to expect, and I’ll hear about it if anything unexpected happens.
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I love space and discovery. I also dont super care about this because what is even the point of it? We did a fly around of a rock in our backyard we know super well already. Give me more JWST, not this
Yeah, but the point is to test the technology which will eventually get people back onto the moon, set up permanent off-Earth habitation, etc. Which in turn will/could be part of future steps for further-reaching exploration. I still think it has value as a building block.
But we already had the technology to get to the moon, take pictures, and get off it. Nothing against the crew, im glad they got this once in a life experience, but theres nothing new to this.
We had it, yes, but we lost it - I believe that many of the technical plans from Apollo have been lost over the years, so some of this is pretty much reinventing the wheel to get us back to where we were before.
What part of reinventing the wheel is slashing NASA’s budget to shreds? This is just the last public test flight before space is walled off as a playground for the rich. They’ll get their tourist flights and luxury colonies and nice vacations from the boiling toxic hell they turned earth into.
If you think any resources are going to trickle down to us earth peasants, I’ve got a moon base to sell you.
Not so much lost but, its an entirely new tech stack. So any solutions we might have had in the past are no longer appropriate solutions.
Thats a weird take.
Literally everything that just went to the moon and back is “new”.
Yes, we have been to the moon before but that doesn’t mean that all the cool stuff we just did is not an amazing achievement.
Yeah I’ve been thinking maybe this is it – it’s still technically impressive and I have nothing but admiration for the teams who have pored their sweat and tears into making sure it’s safe and reliable, but it’s kind of a ‘so what?’ moment.
Telescopes and geology have always been the cool part of space, not that humans are in it.
If they landed and did stuff that was more complex than we can send robots to do it would have been pretty awesome!
This flyby is a necessary precursor to landing and doing those cool things.
They need to take tiny incremental steps because the cost of a fuckup is so great.
If the public has to watch someone expire in space due to a malfunction the existing candle flame of support for these endeavours would be snuffed out.
With only two seconds of ping they can work from Earth with robots. Sending people is just a dick contest.
Yep, I am definitely more excited by space science news. I’d say I’m just more mature now and interested in more grounded “pure” science, but it wasn’t too long ago that I was giggling like an idiot as we watched the 2 falcon heavy boosters landing back on their dual pads at KSC, so I don’t think it’s entirely just a loss of child-like wonder (though it’s wearing thin these days, gotta admit).
what is even the point of it?
No one’s been on this spacecraft design while it’s in space before, and it’s got some kinks that need to be worked out (like the issues with the toilet); it’s a shakedown flight to figure out what goes wrong when people are actually on board. That’s not really all that sexy compared to a moon landing, but testing your support systems in practice really needs to happen before you do more ambitious things with the craft.
for me its not only the glacier pace of progress… its also the lack of scientific motivation.
this didnt happen for science… its a political tool
There are scientific targets and experiments being run
https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/artemis-ii-science/
100% there is a big political component to the effort, but there are also data that we can’t get without getting farther from Earth
The Apollo program was also a political tool, but it was astounding (not that I know first-hand, just hearing what my folks have said, and even they were fairly young at the time). Artemis doesn’t have the same caché, I guess.
fair… i grew up with the shuttle… we were constantly reminded about the science
even that sucked due to the politics… as i would later find out the shuttle was stupidly inefficient but profitable for some
And don’t forget that a big part of the shuttle sucking was caused by the military who forced nasa to make major design changes so that the shuttle could fulfill military tasks. Tasks which the shuttle never even wound up being used for because the military simply created their own separate rockets to do those tasks.
They aren’t doing anything new, we have already been around the moon.
It boils down to this: Going to the moon in the 60’s was political, though a massive technical feat.
Since then we’ve figured out how to send robots to fucking Mars to do the science we want to do, for a fraction of the cost (and none of the risk) of sending humans.
Artemis just isn’t where we should be spending money, never mind the political bullshit surrounding it, and the typical government vendors getting their hands in the cookie jar like they did for Apollo (looking at you, Boeing).
And I say all this as someone fascinated by Apollo, and as excited as anyone else by the prospect of humans on the moon. I just no longer see the cost/benefit of humans vs automation there.
We have remote rovers in the sea and on Mars. For the moon surely we could send all sorts of devices to do science there. It’s faster to reach, we have near real-time comms, it has a greater solar exposure so power is less of a problem. So where are those rovers?
We don’t have them because they would expose the pointlessness of sending humans.
Artemis just isn’t where we should be spending money
The warcry of a capitalist. It’s the justification for ending park services, museums, or anything that isn’t specifically generating a porfit.
Eh, yes you’re right but seriously what are we gaining from this mission? As far as I’ve heard there’s nothing really new that were gaining from it, just… Because?
To the ops point, there are a multitude of more beneficial projects that money could have gone toward instead in the same realm.
Well, I guess that depends on what you define as an achievement.
In terms of skills and expertise there’s only a handful living people with lunar experience and all of them are 60+ years old. It’s important to pass these skills down from person to person as training manuals and videos aren’t the same as an actual person passing on this wisdom. This one shouldn’t really need any explanation.
For dick-measuring newspaper headlines, we did just send some humans farther into space than we ever have before. That’s a tangible thing that’s measurable; anyone can understand it.
For raw, practical science, somone who’s a bigger nerd than me will have to tag in for that. What I do know and understand is we’re launching more advanced technology with a ship that’s both smaller in size with more interior space. We’ve got measurements of the astronauts in deep space and data on the far side of the moon. Regular people arguing over the importance of this data isn’t going to produce anything conclusive.
Most importantly we tested all new everything and it worked!
What are you blathering about?
You are too focused on the dollar amount.
Funny that you feel this way, because I thought about posting a similar and yet almost opposite post to [email protected]. I think it gets too much attention compared to other missions.
I think the Artemis mission isn’t completely useless and even regardless of Lunar economy and nostalgic motivation, there are some benefits, sure. But all of this over-sensationalized exposure with more emphasis on the USA is the reality check that we’re slowly resetting to a space race. I always thought that it was a beautiful story that what started as competition turned into the biggest evidence of our united efforts. And while I don’t think collaborations will end, I fear that they will turn into alliances and we are back to competition.
In all honesty at this stage it’s not that exciting. They’re hyping up people going further from the earth than ever before, which is technically true, but astronauts have orbited the moon before just not quite as far in absolute distance.
So this is mostly doing something done before in the 70s. Rocket launches, grainy images of the moon from close up, photos of earth from near the moon and astronauts floating in zero G isn’t new.
I don’t blame you for not getting excited to watch long videos where not a lot happens very slowly, or reading press coverage which is brutally honest largely fluff.
The ultimate goal is exciting, but that doesn’t mean every step on the way is exciting. I suspect the first moon landing will be of more interest, then the next one will not be, even though the landings are a stepping stone to Mars.
This ^ I get it, the images we are getting back ARE stunning, but is there anything about this mission that demanded a manned spaceflight? Couldn’t we/didn’t we already do the same thing remotely with the other planets?
I’m glad we’re getting back to it, and I’m happy to see anything other “We’re sending mice up on the space shuttle… AGAIN!”
But even Artemis IV where they are planning a moon landing has been done.
Let me know when the first colony is formed, then I can get excited.
Let me know when the first colony is formed, then I can get excited.
It will only be open to billionaires. Or to people there to make money for billionaires. That’s why I’m not excited.
Compulsory moon colony for billionaires would be great thanks.
Let me know when the first colony is formed, then I can get excited.
You don’t just jump right to the final goal, there are many steps to get there. This was one of them
is there anything about this mission that demanded a manned spaceflight?
You don’t just send astronauts into space for a photo op. You pair the photo op with critical testing of systems required to support the next iterations of the mission.
I cared a little bit. Then the astronauts started blathering about the bible.
Christofascist nation doing Christian things. Not surprised.
So much problems to get mad about. Don’t have time to be happy for some people so far away. We are try to survive everday.
Here are the reason.
I feel happy for everyone taking joy in this moment. I don’t feel much of anything for it though. It’s wildly neutral.
Because you can see it for the distraction that it is. In a vacuum it is a wonderful or at least interesting and significant thing but it is also clear that it’s just a PR stunt by the US government.
That’s not to belittle the training, dedication, preparation, and everything else that was done by all of the people around adjacent to or even inside the rocket. The indictment is not on them.
OP is Neo at dinner wondering why his steak isn’t fulfilling.
for me, it’s the fact that it’s being used as a political tool by the usa to broadcast their prowess, that it’s being presented as a hopeful look in the future all the while the country running this is bombing and murdering hundreds of thousands, and that the companies benefitting from artemis’s publicity are mostly “defense” contractors like spacex and lockheed-martin, aka again the same people doing all the genocide
it’s hard to feel excited about it even tho there is plenty of cool science being done, that cool science stands on a mountain of tragedy and horrors
Could the same thing be said about the Apollo program in the 60’s?
Factually, sure, but emotionally, not even close.
