This opinion may be unpopular here but it's hard to get excited about a colossal waste of taxpayer money after all the damage DOGE did. I don't understand how these NASA missions with questionable scientific value and obscene budgets get off the ground.
I mean I do understand, NASA funding is important to oligarchs. But still.
I personally find the grind easier when there also big things happening. You can't just cook the same, most basic, cheapest meal every day for your family and expect them to be happy. Who wants to join a club that doesn't do anything interesting? Same with society. It sometimes needs to dream, to aspire and inspire. To lift peoples head from the toil and look up.
Artemis was already set in stone well before DOGE came about and IMO if the federal government is going to set mountains of cash on fire I'd rather it be to NASA than half the crap the government wastes every year.
My point is that DOGE killed a bunch of government programs that help people while saving no money, yet this giant waste of money survived. Cancelling Artemis II alone in favor of III would save a billion dollars by itself.
Multiply by 1000. Then multiply by 10. And that is expenditure on another country but instead of for promoting equity (how can anyone be against DEI as it is properly defined???) it is spent on slaughter.
It was never intended to save money. It was about a crusade against remote work, eliminating civil servants who might be loyal to the Constitution rather than the president, and planting a seed of government dysfunction for later years.
I mean I do understand, NASA funding is important to oligarchs. But still.