this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I've been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just... don't care at all. I'm not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven't clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I'm wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.

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[–] Voltarion@piefed.social 1 points 17 hours ago

So basically it gives life aid to capitalism and will let us destroy planet some more. Even worse.

[–] Voltarion@piefed.social 18 points 1 day ago (4 children)

We have so much problems down here on Earth that Artemis seems like a smokescreen. I see no way it could benefit humanity.

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[–] KaChilde@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

For me, I just don’t see it as the step towards a bright future that it cone was.

So we reinvigorate the world’s interest in space missions, then what? Every iota of evidence from our own planet tells us that businesses are going to own the moon, mars, and beyond. Wayland-Yutani is more likely than The Federation.

I just can’t get excited about another frontier for Musk and Bezos to rub their stanky dicks all over.

[–] WorldsDumbestMan@lemmy.today 1 points 1 day ago

I was far more excited to see the solar panels in Syria.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 22 points 2 days ago (2 children)

I don't care because it doesn't seem like a genuine mission to prove something. It feels like a purely political stunt. At least with the original mission, it was breaking a frontier on top of trying ot show off to Russia during the Cold War, but this time it's only the US flexing as mandated by the Orangegutan in Charge because he can and it feels icky.

[–] Stormy@thelemmy.club 9 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

His name is forever going to be associated with this too. Tainted like our lives have been with his toxicity forever

[–] IratePirate@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago

My feelings exactly. This was not politics leveraged to advance science. This was science abused to advance politics.

[–] 0oWow@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

This system of things, all over the world, is falling apart. Going to space might be likened to a desperate cry for sanity. But a single cry of a baby in an ocean of crying individuals all over the world is not something given much attention.

[–] SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world 12 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

You already know the answer, I think. It's because they didn't land.

Orbiting the moon - super cool. Seeing new stuff from far side - super cool. Emotional investment in something we've more or less done before? Well....

Which is actually a damn shame, but brains are funny like that. The entirety of human progress (and hubris) is down to chasing the next dopamine hit - and that probably includes the original moon shot.

Artemis is asking you to feel the same thing twice. Your lizard brain isn't stupid - it's just honest and lazy. If novelty is the drug, then this isn't a new drug. It's a carefully rebranded rerun with better CGI and a press kit. Plus, you've probably had a lot of other proxy hits to the ol' reward center so that something as big as "humans in a tin can fly around the moon" just registers as "meh - I've seen better on For All Mankind".

And I hate that for us.

[–] artifex@piefed.social 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Honestly I don't even think I would care if they had landed. If they were setting up some sort of base I'd be into it -- mostly to geek out over the new tech and techniques that would have to be developed for construction, environmental control, etc. But for just boots on the ground? Still kinda meh.

I'd be excited for boots on Mars, but again maybe for the same reasons - just to get people there and back would require an almost unthinkable (today) level of development and dedication of resources.

We've become so...jaded. I remember flying home from Japan, watching movies on my Ipad and dicking around on the net via inflight wifi. Literally flying over the ocean, in a chair, in the sky, with a supercomputer the size of a book, using invisible waves to communicate instantaneously across the globe.

Yawn.

Our calibration for extraordinary is out of whack. That's the issue, I think.

[–] sefra1@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago

I kinda felt the same way tbh, I love space stuff so usually I would be super exited about it, and maybe following it in real time, specially taking into account the budget cuts that NASA has been getting over the previous decades, I should be hopeful for the start of a new age of (manned) space exploration, but given the current political climate I can't ignore that the whole thing ends up being a demonstration of power by the USA first and a scientific mission second.

Thing is, this has always been the case since the very first space missions, it's nothing new that governments only finance space programs for ulterior motives. Maybe I've become too cynical to be able to separate stuff from their political context.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I literally don’t even want to watch Project Hail Mary.

I think of all those space movies where the Earth has to do something together. Where it cuts to listeners in Paris, Beijing, Zimbabwe, New York, and Moscow before going back to some Mission Control center saying “We’re counting on you.”

Then I realize, in reality, there would be American cultists actively fighting any kind of effort to save the world, or run a giant “DEI WILL DOOM US” campaign because one of the astronaut crew is part Asian.

I want these stupid fanciful astronauts to see that we actively don’t have the circumstances to create these wonderful worldwide moments of joy anymore because of the overwhelming levels of sick hatred they’ve created in bankrupting our world of empathy and flooding it with religious propaganda.

The people personally funding rockets could have cured cancer everywhere with their savings. I honestly think if a lethal meteor was headed for the Earth, they’d want to live, but they’d invest everything into trying to save themselves rather than trying to save everyone.

[–] XeroxCool@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago

Project Hail Mary doesn't do that, from what I recall. I think it's just the US government/military collecting a bunch of scientists. Maybe it's cut from the adaptation. The mission has a lengthy timeline of decades while the existential threat is already harming the planet. It doesn't really paint the Earth in any kind of dreamy co-op light from what I recall.

It's a beautiful movie. I like hard sci-fi drama. My SO does not. We both enjoyed it as it split the difference. It has some beautiful visuals along the way. It's far from "men being dicks in space" like Ad Astra and it doesn't do the Armageddon thing with the global livestream. I'm not saying you have to watch it, but it's just a nice, well done movie worth the time IMO.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're criticizing NASA, a public entity, as if they are in the same club as the billionaires making phallus-shaped rockets and putting pop stars into space. They're not the same.

Also, the Artemis Program's entire budget so far, over the span of ~ a decade is 93 billion. The US spends 997 billion on its war machine every single year.

Maybe they could bomb, shoot, or invade 10% less in the future and give that money to support those in need?

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

I actually wasn’t even trying to criticize NASA. “The people personally funding rockets” refers to private companies like SpaceX.

My only criticism to NASA isn’t really on their funding, but on their general goals of spreading joy through their accomplishments; of having Hollywood movies where we see the whole world unite around a shared cause.

The sad reality is, that reality could be as simple as “our planet doesn’t blow up” and we’d have some people remark “MIGHT BE WORTH IT TO KILL THOSE EVIL LIB’RULS” or “Finally, we achieved Armageddon! And here I thought we needed to purge the West Bank first! Where’s Jesus and the risen army?”

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

My personal opinion of it is that it was either a reaffirmation of the tech need to do it, in which case its kinda sad that we haven't progressed beyond that for the last 50 years. The other idea I have of it is that it was the simplest and fastest way to get eyes on the dark side of the moon to verify or discount the notion of China building a base there

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

Nah, it's way easier to send a satellite to take a look.

It's impossible to secretly launch enough payloads to build a moonbase in the first place. Every launch has to pass through low earth orbit and rockets are shiny. There are too many eyes on the sky to go unnoticed. Even then, there'd be radio chatter between the Earth and Moon, and satellite redirection from the far side. You can encrypt radio signals, but they can't hide.

[–] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 144 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (3 children)

It's been overshadowed by other current events. Quite a shame, really

[–] Beacon@fedia.io 79 points 3 days ago (12 children)

It's more than that. The thought of us doing something incredible like establishing a permanent moon base feels more depressing than inspiring these days because enshitification will be baked into it right from the planning stages

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 5 points 2 days ago

If the Untied States manages to survive the mess it is in, it will probably declare ownership of the moon and declare anyone else who manages to land there illegal aliens....including actual aliens

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[–] lechekaflan@lemmy.world 3 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

That goddamn scandal. The persecution of minorities and the warmongering. The socio-political climate now is far worse compared to the Apollo missions then conducted at the time the US government was unpopular mainly because of the Vietnam War.

The arguments against Artemis aren't surprising as these also mirror the skepticism towards the Apollo program.

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[–] BurgerBaron@piefed.social 32 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I feel oddly similar. I think it's that I can't cheer for America.

[–] Ravel@sh.itjust.works 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

We should have gone to mars by now, but all the funds went to child raping fascists and bombs apparently

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[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 86 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I'm finding it hard to be happy about any of the positives coming from the US government these days. A couple of bright spots don't really outshine the depressing everything else.

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[–] alexquiniou@lemmy.zip 3 points 2 days ago

So much problems to get mad about. Don't have time to be happy for some people so far away. We are try to survive everday.

Here are the reason.

[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 25 points 3 days ago

I don't care about it because it's a NASA mission and I've noticed that anything American these days makes me nauseous.

Call me anything you like, I don't care, this is how o feel after years of america bullshit and decades of more murrica bullshit with their preprogrammed exceptionalism.

I look down upon them, I pity them at best

And then there is something as great as this and I just can help but feel like it's tainted somehow. I know it's an international collaboration, but still, the smell somehow remains

I'm sorry, but fuck, so much misery and death and suffering has been brought to the world by the US for so long already... Trump is just the next iteration taking this place to its natural conclusion. Of course trump is corrupt, the country has been through and through corrupt for decades. This is just a typical self absorbed American grabbing the chance geven to get me myself and I to the top.

So yeah, mixed feelings at best.

[–] LoafedBurrito@lemmy.world 35 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I should be way more excited, but the current administration has ruined everything. NASA is too focused on creating a moon base which is dumb as shit. Let's try and save earth before jumping ship to another planet.

[–] SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Advancements in space can advance humanity on Earth. Like practical solar panels were first created for a satellite. There are experiments that need to be done in low G or zero G like for material science, a permanent moon base could accelerate those advancements. Also experiments on bio printing living cells have been done on the ISS, zero G makes it easier to scaffold the cells into a structure. Maybe a moon base makes it easier to grow organs on an industrial scale.

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[–] Paranoidfactoid@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I'm just glad the thing didn't explode on launch or come flying apart on reentry.

NASA's problem is that their goals get derailed every time the executive changes hands, so they serve no strategic purpose. The moonbase idea is idiotic. Getting bots out to explore asteroids for potential mining is not. NASA should be building the infrastructure for that.

[–] Eril@feddit.org 1 points 1 day ago

I wouldn't say a moon base is idiotic on its own. It seems the next logical step in space exploration after a space station like the ISS to me. But as someone who also didn't really follow the mission: I think this is because at the same time our home (i.e. earth) has such massive problems that take up all the attention. I'm sure at boring times I would have followed that mission very closely...

[–] DillDough@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Isn't one of this missions main goals testing new tech and theories to move us towards exactly what you are asking for?

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[–] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 43 points 3 days ago

It's hard to be excited about going to space when you can't afford to exist on earth.

[–] carotte@lemmy.blahaj.zone 30 points 3 days ago (2 children)

for me, it’s the fact that it’s being used as a political tool by the usa to broadcast their prowess, that it’s being presented as a hopeful look in the future all the while the country running this is bombing and murdering hundreds of thousands, and that the companies benefitting from artemis’s publicity are mostly "defense" contractors like spacex and lockheed-martin, aka again the same people doing all the genocide

it’s hard to feel excited about it even tho there is plenty of cool science being done, that cool science stands on a mountain of tragedy and horrors

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