Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking for myself (who has been fascinated with the space program since I was a small child), any joy I might feel around Artemis II feels tainted, by the immense amount of pork involved (SLS is called "Senate Launch System" for good reason) to the point where Artemis is more corporate welfare that happens to involve the Moon than a real space program, and by my belief that it is intended to be little more than a q…
> my belief that it is intended to be little more than a quick, dirty, and vainglorious Apollo repeat by a failing government. If the USA successfully sends people to the Moon, achieves all of NASA's technical goals, and the astronauts make it back in one piece, isn't that literally the opposite of failure? It might be expensive and you can argue that it's wasteful. But even to that point, the $11B cost of SLS is not…
Same as Mercury/Gemini/Apollo except this time China instead of Russia.