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 (https://idlewords.com/2026/03/artemis_ii_is_not_safe_to_fly....)

> So we're re-creating the Apollo 8 Mission 60 years later.

Not even: Apollo 8[0] went into orbit around the moon (orbited 10 times), then left lunar orbit to return to Earth. This required mission-critical rocket burns both to enter (LOI) and exit (TEI) lunar orbit. Artemis II[1] is merely doing a "fly-by"; it'll never enter lunar orbit, a much less challenging/risky mission.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_8#Lunar_orbit

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemis_II#Lunar_flyby

This is the first time humans go beyond LEO in my lifetime, so personally I'm pretty excited.

Sure, you may look at it from that perspective. Or, you could look into it as restoring a capability that we used to have, and potentially enable further, more interesting missions.

I am not _too excited_ about the SLS itself as it looks like a political compromise, just as the shuttle was.

But better late than never.

I thought I'd heard they'd already made changes to the heat shield after the last failure. Hopefully whatever they learn from this trip will be useful for their next one.

That’s not it. Most people don’t even know what Apollo 8 was.

The average person thinks NASA’s only mission of note was Apollo 11, they don’t even realize there were 5 other landings.

> 60 years after swinging around the moon, we are going to attempt the feat again. I'm having a hard time getting excited...

There was a comedian that had the observation a few years back that we've lost our saw of awe and wonder: he was on a plane when Internet was just being introduced, and it was announced on the flight, but after a little bit it stopped working and they announced 'technical difficulties' and it wouldn't be available.

The guy next to him was like "this is bullshit": how quickly the world owed this guy something that he knew existed only a few minutes before.

As he goes on: often whenever people complain about their flights, it was like a 1940s German cattle car: X happened, then Y happened. And his response is: And then what happened? Did you fly in the air? Did you sit on a chair in the sky? Like a bird, like humans have been imaging since the tail of Icarus (and before)?

Hedonic adaptation is real (which is "fine" as far as it goes, as striving for better isn't a bad thing):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

But given you're invoking history, it's easy how it is to forget the woe that humans lived in just a few decades before Apollo 8, and the incredible strides that happened (and that many people on the planet, even now, have yet to fully experience):

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_and_Fall_of_American_...

Given how incurious 99% of the elected american government is, the amount of enthusiasm has a very low ceiling.

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