I see this moon launch as an exorbitantly wasteful, nationalist project. No money for healthcare and housing, but plenty of money to boldly go where man has gone several many times before.
When I bring this up with liberal friends and family, they give me a sort of incredulous look and talk about how wonderful and scientific and non-political it is. I don’t mind being the “you’ve gone too far left” guy, but you talk to the same people about military spending and they’re right on board.
Is someone here able to diagnose my crankiness and explain why this is actually a good use of resources? (Will also accept echo-chamber validation and ways to use this to increase class consciousness, if offered.)
I love astronomy, I have like 300 hours in Kerbal Space Program and I think it’s super cool that we are sending people to the moon - unfortunately, super cool is just about all there is to it. I realize that NASA’s budget is miniscule in comparison to all the other awful things our tax money is paying for, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is really only being done so we can say we did it.
Any kind of practical application to sending humans to other celestial bodies are hundreds of years away, at minimum, unless by some miracle we unlock the secret to FTL travel (which is likely impossible).
It made sense in the 60s and 70s to send crewed missions because we didn’t have robotics, computers and miniaturization that we do now - and even then they sent probes and stuff fo like Venus and we haven’t since then. I’ve heard there’s some very limited science stuff that could use a human crew close by, I can’t elaborate because I can’t remember. Otherwise, drones and rovers can do more for probably less cost and mass than sending people could. Besides the cool factor, I don’t get the need to send people either.