Why Doesn't Anybody Realize We're Going Back to the Moon?

by paulpauper on 4/2/2026, 10:32:29 PM

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/04/artemis-moon-launch-trump/686661/

Comments

by: eigenrick

So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later. 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited... Especially when some say it may not survive reentry because of politics (<a href="https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly.htm" rel="nofollow">https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....</a>)

4/2/2026, 11:22:10 PM

by: oconnor663

I question the choice of the phrase "to the Moon". I get it, it's technically true, but ~100% of normal people hear that and assume it means boots on the ground. Every single time it gets mentioned, it's immediately followed by a clarification that disappoints the audience. This isn't the sort of marketing choice that a self-confident program makes.

4/2/2026, 11:15:15 PM

by: happytoexplain

Everything that has made my country great has been or is being destroyed. The life I have tirelessly worked for is a shadow of the life my parents and grandparents had. I realize we're going to (orbit) the moon, and I think it's great, but I'm tired. Why would I even talk about this thing?

4/2/2026, 11:17:31 PM

by: palata

I grew up admiring the Apollo mission and the likes.Nowadays, I recognise that it is heavy engineering, but I am not so impressed by the fact that we are throwing so much resources at something that we already know we can do. In fact, we have had humans surviving in space for decades now. It's costing a lot, it's not bringing much.But more than that: we have much more important problems to solve, starting with our survival. Sure, sending robots to Mars is interesting, for science. Sending people to Mars is useless. Hoping to become an "interplanetary species" is preposterous. Thinking that Mars is "just a next step, but we'll go further" is absolutely insane.Life is literally, measurably dying on Earth (the current mass extinction we are living in is happening orders of magnitude faster than the one that killed the dinosaurs). We have a huge energy problem, and more and more global instability.Sure, watching four humans happily travelling to the Moon in a spaceship that literally does not need them is fun, like watching the Superbowl. And like for the Superbowl, there are big fans for whom it is the most important event of the year. However, most people don't care. We're not in 1969 anymore, now it's just a matter of wasting enough money for some people to have the time of their life.

4/2/2026, 11:21:28 PM

by: voidfunc

Been there; done that.This whole thing is nerd fantasy come to life but its not particularly useful and right now the world for most people is about trying to figure out how to deal with the cost of everything thanks to a poorly planned war against Iran.

4/2/2026, 11:19:56 PM

by: whycome

The language is weird about it. Because it’s not a landing. Most people don’t think of Apollo 8 as “going to the moon” — for the public, that’s Apollo 11.

4/2/2026, 11:15:44 PM

by: breve

> The Apollo program was the triple-back-handspring exclamation mark on a century of American technological transformations, during which Americans had electrified their cities, filled their streets with cars and their skies with airplanes, split atoms, and invented digital computers.And look at America now. Erratic, belligerent, applying tariffs on a whim, threatening to annex Canada and Greenland, threatening to leave NATO, alienating itself from allies.Don't underestimate the reputational damage America has done and is still doing to itself.

4/2/2026, 11:45:20 PM

by: autoexec

"Back to the moon" sounds deceptive since we're not actually going to the moon, we're just sending a rocket around it. An actual moon landing will get a lot more attention. What's far more impressive about this launch to me is that it will be the farthest out into space people have been. I think the NASA PR team would have done better making that the headline rather than all this "to the moon!" talk

4/2/2026, 11:27:41 PM

by: Avicebron

We do. But the relative purchasing power and command over purchasing essentials for a middle class life from 1969 to now has shifted so dramatically people are not comfortable enough to care.

4/2/2026, 11:12:57 PM

by: TrackerFF

I think there's a war in the middle east. And a circus back home. Think those are hogging the spotlight right now.

4/2/2026, 11:49:19 PM

by: lisper

Because we are not going back to the moon. A flyby is going to the moon in the same way that driving by the Anaheim exit on I-5 is going to Disneyland.

4/2/2026, 11:29:33 PM

by: jbattle

I just want to say it blows my mind we're likely to literally land on the moon before we get a proper KSP 2

4/2/2026, 11:45:20 PM

by: rtcode_io

People think it's a fake show for distraction.

4/3/2026, 12:28:35 AM

by:

4/2/2026, 11:49:39 PM

by: bwoah

<a href="https://archive.is/mwlfi" rel="nofollow">https://archive.is/mwlfi</a>

4/2/2026, 11:49:32 PM

by: eeixlk

Trump attempted to significantly decrease NASAs budgets and cancel missions so this is happening despite him, and I cant feel joy for this when we are putting people in cages, manipulating stock markets, entering pointless wars, and raising prices of everything while Billionares massively increase their wealth through technically-legal manipulations of the system. This feels like a sad memory of what used to be more than anything else.

4/3/2026, 12:13:10 AM

by: PaulRobinson

$93 billion over 13 years doesn't feel like a great deal for a program that has started to align around a single person's ego, when most of the US is struggling to make ends meet.I think Artemis will be cancelled by the end of the year, unfortunately. If the heat shield doesn't hold up as some observers fear/have warned, perhaps by the end of April.I hope I'm wrong.

4/2/2026, 11:19:31 PM

by: plusfour

i don't care

4/2/2026, 11:35:13 PM

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4/2/2026, 11:31:46 PM

by: Gagarin1917

The basic truth is, the vast majority of people couldn’t give less of a fuck about space and space exploration.It’s just too abstract, too complicated, and too far away for them to feel connected to it. It’s not attached to national pride (anymore), it’s not connected to tragedy (typically), it’s not connected to celebrities they feel like they know (Katy Perry isn’t involved with this launch)… there’s just nothing for the average person to connect with.Every other explanation is just an excuse from people who feel like they should care, but never have.

4/2/2026, 11:47:52 PM

by: sys_64738

Pink Floyd did it in the 1970s.

4/2/2026, 11:38:09 PM

by: abdelhousni

Some people may think it's "Fake news"... Seriously, I guess people are more concerned of the damages and crimes done by the US Trump government and its effects on earth.

4/2/2026, 10:54:45 PM

by: tayo42

There's alot off reasons to not be interested other people are listing them. Space exploration in general has been taken over by billionaires as their hobby becasue they have to much money. I find it hard to care about someone else's expensive toys.

4/3/2026, 12:04:44 AM

by: krapp

We know what bread and circuses are. We know what distraction is.Release the Epstein files, hang every pedophile in them starting with their king, Donald Trump, then move on to anyone of any party who aided and abetted Israels' genocide of Palestinians. Then put the billionaires to the guillotine. Everyone south of the Mason-Dixon line gets to fuck off and have their own country and leave the rest of us alone.There's a long, long list of things we need to take care of, then maybe we can care about rocketships.

4/2/2026, 11:39:48 PM

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4/2/2026, 11:53:00 PM

by: hniszionist

[flagged]

4/2/2026, 11:25:36 PM

by: trhway

we're going back to Moon and going to Mars too on Starship, and it is just a normal roadmap of the SpaceX. And that makes me excited about space future - normalcy of it just being a business, a good profitable business. Where is existence or not of Artemis wouldn't change much our space future.Artemis program and hardware is a huge government money appropriation program, and even if the program makes it to the landing phase, it would still be an unsustainable one-off with probably even less landings than the Apollo program.Establishing of Moon bases, commercial travel and development there - it is all Starship (naturally predicated on SpaceX success at getting it to $5-10M/launch - if not SpaceX, somebody else would anyway do it)As i wrote couple days ago the Artemis/SLS will never be able to get to that commercial level <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47583438">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47583438</a>

4/2/2026, 11:24:26 PM

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