In recent months, it has begun dawning on US lawmakers that, absent significant intervention, China will land humans on the Moon before the United States can return there with the Artemis Program.
So far, legislators have yet to take meaningful action on this—a $10 billion infusion into NASA’s budget this summer essentially provided zero funding for efforts needed to land humans on the Moon this decade. But now a subcommittee of the House Committee on Space, Science, and Technology has begun reviewing the space agency’s policy, expressing concerns about Chinese competition in civil spaceflight.
Artemis is a boondoggle corporate giveaway. Its main purpose is to funnel money into the pockets of big contractors as quickly and efficiently as possible.
I worked on it for a year and a half, and saw so much mismanagement and self-sabotage, I can’t even say. I’ve made multiple posts about it in the past. NASA spent $10 million at least having my team fail to build something that we could have built for probably $2.5 million. Most of that money vanished into the pockets of a giant, evil corporation that mostly builds weapons. I can tell you the guys (and they were all men) that we worked with from that company were laughing all the way to the bank when they canceled our project. Now they’re launching without that component.
I have lots of feelings.
That’s disheartening. I was really excited for Artemis. Guess we can’t have nice things.
I’m still excited for Artemis. Once some of the newer heavy-lift launch vehicles increase their cadence, that will provide alternatives for the most expensive parts of the program (like SLS).