The Lunacy of Artemis

>SpaceX doesn't really care about the moon.

SpaceX is a business, SpaceX doesn't care about the Moon because there are no customers interested in going to the Moon.

If market forces shift and companies start wanting to go to the Moon, you bet SpaceX will care about the Moon because there's money to be made.

ISS stems from Space Station Freedom[1], which itself has its roots in the the Space Transportation System's space station component[2]. The Space Shuttle was a part of the Space Transportation System and the only part to receive funding and see development.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Station_Freedom

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Transportation_System

> From my understanding, nobody is telling that "We should use Apollo as-is", but "why don't we use the same spirit when we were building these back then?".

The political climate in the 1960s was far more tense than it is today, which fueled the space race in ways that forced both sides to give their absolute best efforts to move space exploration forward.

While arguably today there are comparable tensions, countries no longer have to prove anything to the world, and space exploration is mostly a scientific endeavour fueled by private companies that want to make a profit. There's less of an urgency to get to the moon, which can explain that difference in spirit that you mention.

FWIW I don't think that's a bad thing. Space exploration is the most difficult human endeavour, and taking the time to do it right seems like the optimal way to go. The fact world superpowers achieved what they did in a couple of decades of the last century, a mere 60 years after flying machines were invented, is nothing short of extraordinary. But it was a special time, and we shouldn't feel pressured to repeat it.

> Instead Artemis feels like "let's dig the parts pile and put what we have together, and invent the glue required for the missing parts", akin to today's Docker based development ecosystem.

That doesn't seem like a bad approach to me. There is a lot of value to be gained by gluing existing technology together, and if anything, Docker is proof of how wildly successful that can be. Most scientific breakthroughs are effectively a repurposing or combination of previous ideas, after all. I don't think this is a valid criticism of Docker, nor of this approach.

SLS is the rocket. Artemis is the project that uses SLS, Orion, and Starship to land humans on the moon.

There's also the dubious Lunar Gateway concept although that will likely get dropped as reality sets in. Maybe the same will happen to SLS. Wishful thinking.

I didn't live through the early space programmes, but having read about them recently, I'm surprised by how incremental they (and the Soviet Sputnik and Vostok counterparts) were.

- The early Mercury flights developed the idea of putting a human in a capsule on top of an ICBM to see what happens at altitude and during re-entry.

- Later Mercury flights experimented with de-orbiting techniques. (The early flights didn't need that because the ICBMs that launched the first people into space did so on a ballistic trajectory – they never achieved orbit.)

- With Gemini we figured out things like endurance (what is it like to have humans in space for weeks), rendezvous and docking (incredibly difficult), and extravehicular activities (preparation for walking on another astronomical body.)

- Early Apollo was focused entirely on solving multi-stage flights without humans on board.

- With Apollo 7 we verified the command module was good enough to attempt to send a few laps around the moon, which happened with Apollo 8, while we were still waiting for a fully functioning lander.

- Apollo 9 was a dry run of the entire moon landing sequence – except in low Earth orbit.

- Apollo 10 repeated the same exercise from Apollo 9 except in Lunar orbit.

- Apollo 11 is often considered the first moon landing, but from the perspective of the program, it was really just another experiment: can we repeat Apollo 10 except also make a brief touch-and-go anywhere on the lunar surface?

- Even Apollo 12 isn't really a moon landing proper, but another experiment: can we repeat Apollo 11 but now also make a precision touchdown?

It wasn't until somewhere around Apollo 14/15 where the main purpose of the missions started becoming scientifically exploring the moon.

That's something like 25 crewed flights at various stages of development that had as their purpose to explore/learn about just one or two new aspects of the future moon missions, pushing the envelope a little further.

Granted, many of these things we have fresh practise in thanks to the space station, but also many of them we don't. It seems a little weird to bet it all on a small number of big bang launches.