I ran across this video[0] yesterday with Neil deGrasse Tyson talking about how it’s always been political. The first moon landing was more about global politics than science. As a child you likely weren’t concerned about that side of it, or were shielded from it.

It isn’t always the purist motivations that push the human race forward, but forward it moves us.

[0] https://youtu.be/j_AlXChA9F4

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ryandrake 5 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think OP's problem with it is that it's "political" but that it's a product of pork and corporate welfare. The political thrust of the Apollo program was more "beat the Russians" and less "funnel money into dozens of already-rich corporations in favored districts." Even thought there was a lot of that, too. Modern space (and defense) projects seem to be almost 100% "pork funnel" and zero anything else.

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bps4484 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It's not "almost 100% pork funneling" and I know this because....they're there! they are at the moon! I don't like pork either, but let's not blow this out of proportion.

How much do we think that it should have cost, if everything was perfectly optimized, to get to the moon? 50b instead of 100b? so ok, 50% was pork, and that's bad, but let's not overstate it and instead allow a little joy in our lives.

also the original apollo program was about 300b in today's dollars, so seems like things have always been a little porky.

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actionfromafar 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Only 300b for the Apollo program? That sounds downright lean.

	▲	richwater 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Not when you consider how we got lucky on some aspects

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bombcar 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The pork funnel is going to exist unless something major changes; so I'd rather get moonshots out of the pork.

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dingaling 4 hours ago | parent [-]

But how many Moonshots could we have got out of $100 billion of vegetarian non-pork?

Everything about SLS, and most of Artemis, has been dictated by Congress, often overriding expert advice.

Why not just give NASA the money and let them get on with it?

The same happens with the US military, Congress constantly deleting funding for programs they don't like to fund ones they do.

	▲	trothamel 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		We're about to find out. The new NASA administrator, Isaacman, seems to have done a very good job of convincing the various Senators to, if not get rid of the pork, allow him to allocate it in a way that benefits the lunar program. The result was the Ignition event, which looks like it's planning to send up 17 small and 4 crew-capable landers by 2028, along with a fleet of orbital assets. You can find out more https://www.nasa.gov/ignition/ , especially the "Building the Moon Base" section. The cost is $10B spread out over 3 years.

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bobmcnamara 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

we've also got 50 years of baseline tech improvement to try out.

In the 60s we weren't going to land in the darkness because we couldn't see to land.

But the shadows are probably where the water might be, and that's where we're going next!

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overfeed 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> The political thrust of the Apollo program was more "beat the Russians" and less "funnel money into dozens of already-rich corporations in favored districts."

Artemis feels a bit more "Beat the Chinese, and show the world we still got it." I think cost-effectiveness[1] is a fig-leaf for what are SpaceX fanboys: had the same mission been on a Starship, HN would be awash with how other companies (Blue Origin) were late to earth-orbit, and the gap had widened beyond Earth's orbit.

1. In contrast, I haven't seen any complaints about Military-Industrial pork on any of the Iran threads, even when contrasting the cost of interceptors vs drones. Let slone have pork dominate the thread.

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KellyCriterion 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> more about global politics than science

I had a great Prof during my bachelor from Russia - this is what he always told -> and it makes sense: Back then was cold war

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nemo44x 34 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s a weak take and here’s why. Huge tasks like going to the moon are made up of many different individuals that have different goals. Some are rocket scientists that want to innovate on the science of rocketry. Others are government admins with political goals.

So to call the entire thing “political” ignores the purpose of those involved and critical to the outcome at the expense of just labeling it all “political”.