Comment by small_model
8 hours ago
Impressive mission but I feel it's not capturing the public attention because it's actually a step back from the mission 50 years ago when they actually landed men on the moon with tech that was orders or magnitude simpler and less powerful.
I've noticed there's a pretty big difference between the people who remember how routine shuttle flights became and the younger crowd at work. I do think Artimis is cool, but I will admit to being a bit jaded about it as a GenX who watched Challenger live in 2nd grade. The GenZ at work seem genuinely delighted. And that's pretty cool.
I think it you ask the average person they're more surprised that people haven't been going to the moon for the past 50 years. In people's minds it's a solved problem and it's been boring for decades now. If supersonic air travel came back it would only interest people because of reduced journey times. But this doesn't even have anything that directly benefits people so they don't care.
A diverse and inclusive crew, a publically-funded mission, an emphasis on science and discovery, and government investment in a long-term strategy, not a quick politcal win.
This current administration has made sure these things never happen again, Artemis is very much the swan song of an America that has died. I am not interested in watching our corpse twitch and calling it life.