Why the Moon Mission Doesn’t Thrill Me

The most astonishing thing about Artemis II is that the crew includes a black man, a woman and a Canadian. How did this happen under our diversity-hating, Canada-bashing President?

HOBOKEN, NEW JERSEY, EARTH, APRIL 5, 2026.  Smaran, my colleague and buddy, texts me on Wednesday: “Are you tuned into the Artemis II launch? I’m watching the live broadcast.”

This is how I learn that NASA is sending a manned spacecraft around the Moon. I’m a science writer, supposedly, and yet I hear about Artemis II from Smaran, a professor of literature (albeit specializing in science fiction).

Embarrassed by my ignorance, I read some coverage of Artemis II. One NY Times essay explains that the mission represents a step toward establishing a permanent base on the Moon, which in turn takes us closer to Mars. Another Times piece wonders whether Artemis II can draw Americans together in a troubled time, as Apollo 8 allegedly did in 1968.

I’d say no, for two reasons: First, going around the Moon in 2026, as Artemis II is doing, isn’t comparable to circling the Moon for the first time, as the Apollo 8 astronauts did; let alone landing on the Moon, as Apollo 11 did in 1969.

Second, as bad as things were in the late 1960s, when the Vietnam war was ripping America apart, they’re arguably worse today. It’s hard to imagine what could unite us now. Maybe a war-of-the-worlds-style invasion by insectoid Venusians? Even woke lefties like me would cheer as ICE thugs battle actual aliens!

This NPR report focuses on the Artemis II crew, which includes a black man, a woman and a Canadian. But the crew’s diversity only counts as news because Trump is so anti-diversity. He bashes programs that counter racism and sexism. He’s bashed Canada, too!

How did NASA slip this crew past Trump? Did he not know about it? Maybe Trump thinks Artemis II proves how un-racist and un-sexist he is, making up for his attacks on diversity initiatives in government, the private sector and academia.

I’m guessing Trump doesn’t care about Artemis II. He briefly mentions the mission at the beginning of a live TV address Wednesday night. He brags that the spacecraft “will be traveling further than any manned rocket has ever flown.” He adds, “God bless those four unbelievable astronauts.” Nothing about their diversity.

Trump quickly switches to his main topic, his war against Iran. The U.S., he boasts, is bombing the Iranians “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.” This war is making the U.S. “safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.” Trump doesn’t mention children killed by U.S. missiles.

Two days later, the Trump administration announces it wants to boost military spending in 2027 by 42 percent to $1.5 trillion. That’s almost as much as what China, Russia and all other nations combined spend on arms and armies.

Trump’s proposed federal budget slashes programs “aimed at promoting diversity, helping Black and Hispanic students, and boosting minority-owned businesses, all initiatives the president derides as ‘woke,’” according to the Times. The budget cuts funding for NASA, too, and pours billions into a space-based anti-missile system called Golden Dome.

My cynicism toward the U.S. space program actually predates Trump. I began reporting on NASA when I became a full-time science reporter in 1983. I also covered the Reagan administration’s Strategic Defense Initiative, a.k.a. “Star Wars,” a plan to build a space-based defense against nuclear missiles.

I started seeing the space shuttle and other NASA projects as manifestations not of human curiosity and wanderlust but of American nationalism and militarism. My cynicism has been compounded by the ambitions of Musk and Bezos, founders of SpaceX and Blue Origin, respectively.

Musk and Bezos see space as the final frontier for capitalism. SpaceX and Blue Origin weren’t directly involved in Artemis II, but they are expected to play key roles in future Moon missions.

Musk and Bezos both fantasize about establishing colonies on Mars. [See Addendum.] If I live long enough to see humans land on the red planet, will that thrill me? Maybe. It depends on what’s happening here on Earth.

Will the U.S. and other states have abandoned serious efforts to counteract climate change stemming from fossil-fuel consumption? Will we be even more afflicted by surging sea levels, floods, droughts, superstorms, fires, heat waves and mass migrations, as many scientists predict? Will our under-investment in vaccines and global health initiatives make us more vulnerable to pandemics like Covid-19?

Will we have sunk even further into hard-core, unrestrained, sink-or-swim capitalism? Will more nations be ruled by tyrants who don’t even pay lip service to democratic values? Will politicians kowtow even more cravenly to oligarchs and care even less about the poor, the sick, the old?

Will AI and other tech give governments and corporations even more power to monitor and manipulate us? Will AI take away more of our jobs and do more of our thinking for us, turning us into virtual zombies, like the flabby, lazy humans in WALL-E?

Will nations spend even greater sums on arms and armies? Will the world be more wracked by wars that slaughter more women and children? Will those wars be increasingly fought by cyborg soldiers and autonomous weapons, a.k.a. killer robots, as well as by ordinary mortals?

Will more nations possess more nuclear weapons? Will the taboo against using nuclear weapons be breached, perhaps because ChatGPT has persuaded some future equivalent of Hegseth that the benefits of a nuclear attack outweigh the downside?

If things like this are happening here on Earth, I’m not going to give a shit about what’s happening on Mars, any more than I give a shit about Artemis II.

Addendum: Although the real space program doesn’t thrill me, I love the Apple series For All Mankind, which imagines what would have happened to our space ambitions if the Soviet Union hadn’t collapsed. We’d have a Mars colony wracked by labor disputes and Cold War intrigue! It’s a great show, with excellent writing, plotting, acting and special effects.

Further Reading:

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