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| The Artemis II astronauts; their lunar mission began yesterday. (Left to right: Jeremy Hansen, Canadian Space Agency; NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, and Reid Wiseman. Photos: crew: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani; launch: NASA/Michael DeMocker.) |
Did you know that a lunar spaceflight began yesterday, with a crew of four astronauts aboard?
If so, did you care?
I couldn't help caring. As I've written before, space exploration has fascinated me since childhood. But ever since the Apollo project (1961-1972) made lunar spaceflight practically routine, I've been impatient about our next grand goal. After Apollo, low earth orbits just weren't all that impressive. (If the earth's diameter were the height of an average adult male, spaceships in low earth orbit would pass only a couple of inches over his head.) But we've seemingly lacked the ambition and focus to send people beyond those two inches.
It's not that we haven't done some incredible things in space by means of robotic explorers who've already traveled distances that crewed spacecraft aren't likely to reach for perhaps centuries. Some of them, such as the Hubble and JWST projects, have extended our vision into time/space up to just about the theoretical limit of the early universe.
As for money spent on space exploration, our legislators have poured vast amounts into equipment. Since it began in 2011, the Artemis program of heavy-lift rockets and Orion spacecraft has thus far produced two launches, including yesterday's, but it has cost something like US$ 69 billion. The immediate costs associated with yesterday's launch ran to about $4 billion. Despite its bloated costs and gigantic delays, every argument to replace the Artemis launch vehicle with more economical and project-focused alternatives has run up against congressional defenders determined to preserve the associated jobs in their states and districts. These debates have mainly occurred among insiders, because even these astronomical (sorry) costs haven't earned the attention of the ultimate funders—the taxpayers.
(Speaking of human spaceflight expenditures and delays, I won't even mention the problems of the Boeing Starliner.)
The alternatives to those traditional government-owned and -funded programs are the public-private collaborations that produced the SpaceX and Blue Origin spacecraft, among others. But to quote Amy Shira Teitel, "...it's opening the door to an era where NASA could become a contracting agency, funneling its budget to billionaires" instead of providing the leadership and focus of NASA's first decade of human spaceflight and its amazing record of successes in uncrewed exploration.
Again, I share Teitel's concern about the Artemis program in its larger context, if there even is a larger context:
...We have two landing missions or we have four landing missions. Then what? You know, like there's still that big question of what comes after that. And I just feel like we're almost kind of kicking the can down the road a little bit. Like, great, we can have a couple more missions. We can get a bit more science. Um, but then what? We're just delaying having to make a big decision about whether or not to retain this over-budget rocket or try something different or pass it off to commercial partners. It feels like that's an inevitable point that we're going to get to. (From this video.)
Exactly. If we are looking forward to establishing a moon base, as has been proposed, there's not much practical planning evident for how that will happen, given the current maximum of four more Artemis launches (if sticker shock doesn't hit us first!), or even a coherent attempt to persuade us that such a base is a worthwhile project on the way to some specified greater goal.
And I'm sorry, vague references to China aren't enough. President Kennedy at one point suggested replacing a U.S.-only Apollo project with a collaboration with the USSR and other nations. Is anyone designing a 21st-century version of his vision?
In the meantime, I'm following the Artemis II mission more or less constantly, and hoping very much for its safety and success, but I admit that it's not the same unmixed devotion I had for Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo.
Eric Berger has a somewhat more positive take on Artemis II...but his title points to the lack of public excitement: Why is NASA bothering to go back to the Moon if we’ve already been there? And while you're on the Ars Technica Web site, see Stephen Clark's NASA officials sidestepped questions on Artemis II risks—there’s a reason why.
Nancy Thomas and her "super-salad" moments.
Mike Farley on Sein zum Tode. "Death is an old friend."
All Saints Cathedral, Nairobi, Kenya. "Jesus, Remember Me...."
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