Artemis

Some people are excited about the Artemis mission, and others are pretty grumpy about it. Moon shots have been done before, of course, and the thrill isn't going to be the same. I remember the original well.

The same reasons for not doing it at all circulate again: Benefits are speculative, We've got great needs (wars, the poor, etc) that all need dealing with and this is a mere distraction, and so on. There's a new reason too: Why not use robots for exploration since they work so well now.

Of course the benefits of using low earth orbit and geosynchronous orbit are not speculative at all anymore, but we have a better handle on what we can find on the Moon and Mars and a better appreciation for how hard work there will be.

The "How can we spend money on this when we have so many poor/etc" sounds very noble-minded, but that argument has no boundaries or limits. Why did Beethoven waste his time composing music when he could have been agitating for peace and trying to relieve poverty?

No. There are things worth doing, things that make life better, that have nothing to do with the usual list of desperate needs. I judge exploration (physical and scientific research) to be among those, along with arts. "We can put a man on the Moon but we can't fix homelessness." Well, we can carve a Pieta but we can't cure drug addiction--and probably never will. I don't believe the societal-problem advocates should have an automatic veto on the work of the rest of us.

The question comes down to balance. You can overdo anything. And there are several kind of costs to consider: money of course, but enthusiasm and good will too. Thanks to the intervening years of development some effects can be had for much less (in constant dollars) than they could for the Apollo program. Enthusiasm seems harder to come by, for pretty much anything. A certain decadence set in in society, and NASA turned rather sclerotic. Private rockets pack a lot more enthusiasm now.

If you argue that the Artemis program lacks vision--that we're just doing what our ancestors did, just a little bigger; a little larger pyramid this time--I admit there's justice to the argument.

If you complain that it's inefficient to try to loft people instead of robots--granted.

If you complain that the Constitution doesn't mandate research spending like this--well, it doesn't mandate poverty spending either. And several decades of the latter have shown some stubborn problems with poverty elimination and a moral hazard or two as well--the programs are not an unmitigated good.

You could argue that private firms should take up the torch of space travel. I like the idea, though we have a tragedy of the commons problem already.

Where should the balance be--this year? I don't know. Existential problems, such as war or overwhelming debt, may demand cuts to the bone and beyond. We don't have a good track record of facing up to problems and making hard decisions either.

Nor do I know on what scales you weigh conflicting desires: smaller classes or more to teach about?

I do know that if I had funding authority, I'd want to keep trying to explore.