Quote Originally Posted by hatidua View Post
-potentially not, unless you are dying of it. suffice to say, going to the moon, again, isn't making anyone's latte cheaper or easing anyone's morning commute. I get it, you want to see a rocket blast off, headed for the moon. The reality is that it costs a metric-@#$%-ton of money to go to a place that is a barren rock, with bragging rights to say "lookie here, we went, -again".
The implications go far beyond watching a launch, even though launches are fundamentally cool.

The ultimate implication in manned space exploration is as a way to lay the fundamental groundwork to stave off the extinction of the human race.

And, ultimately, Artemis isn't (or shouldn't) be about recreating a stunt where we go and pick up a couple rocks and do a few basic experiments, but about establishing the fundamental infrastructure where long-term experiments and business concepts can be conducted that will pave the way for eventually moving on to doing manned missions and business development in other locations like Mars and Ceres. The initial concept here should be more about establishing a facility similar to McMurdo rather than just doing a flags 'n' footprints stunt. As an example, the amount of useful science that's been done on the ISS has been utterly tremendous, and that's with a facility that's rapidly aging and can only support six astronauts at any given time. A lunar facility capable of supporting two or three times that number of astronauts for a few months at a time would very, very likely pay incredible scientific dividends.

There are also national security issues as well. The Chinese have already successfully landed two lunar rovers, and are rapidly bootstrapping the technology needed to execute a manned mission, and my understanding is they're also planning on implementing a manned facility as well, most likely at the lunar south pole where ample supplies of light and water are available.