Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen broke record for farthest distance traveled from Earth
The crew of the historic Artemis II lunar flyby mission have earned the US’s top space medal, officials have announced.
Cmdr Reid Wiseman, pilot Victor Glover, and mission specialists Christina Koch and Jeremy Hansen are set to receive the Congressional Space Medal of Honor on 28 August, the US space agency Nasa said.
Nasa’s website indicates that only 30 astronauts have gained the honor – among them Neil Armstrong, the first person to walk on the moon, and John Glenn, who was first to orbit Earth and then served four terms in the US Senate.
Wiseman, Glover, Koch and Hansen were selected for the medal, despite its name, by Donald Trump after the Nasa administrator, Jared Isaacman, recommended them to the president.
It was partly a trial run for Artemis IV, which will see humans land on the moon for the first time since 1972.
Artemis V will see humans begin building a permanent base on the moon.
At this particular point in time, thats a fucking stupid goal.
Adding more debris to the already-littered low earth orbit, heat and pollution to our home environment while we roast, drown, and get blown away by ultra-powerful storms, and for what? So some rich assholes can make more money. We earth-locked plebs get basically nothing from this, unlike prior missions.
Don’t get me wrong, I love space, I love space exploration and the technological progression that comes with it… I do not love this, and I do not love whats going on with said space exploration. I’m not usually one to say “lets not do xyz because we have bigger problems” but in the case where xyz directly contributes, in a big way, to those bigger problems, at a time when the people doing/supporting xyz are doing absolutely nothing to fix the bigger problem and are in fact trying to make it worse… yeah, now is really not the time for this stunty bullshit. Not from the US.
If JAXA, ESA, ASA, CSA, etc. were the ones proposing this, as a joint venture or some such, I’d be all for it. But it’s not.
Edit to add: I feel like “moon base!!!” Is the next iteration of “rich asshole private island doomsday bunker”. It’s the ultimate private island because normal people can’t even hope to get there to do sabotage, and its completely isolated from all the climate change problems. Very horizon, specifically the far zenith.
First of all, we can work on multiple things at once. That’s one of the benefit of being multiple people.
Secondly, compare NASA’s budget with the rest of the government. It’s pitiful.
Thirdly, money spent on this isn’t destroyed, it’s paid as salary to the people who worked on this. Yes a chunk ends up in some rich asshole’s bank account, but most of it is used to pay for groceries.
Finally, if you’re mad about space debris, starlink is by far the biggest contributor. A few human flights per decades are a drop in the bucket.
I’m not talking about NASA’s budget that pays NASA workers here. Im very well aware that they get peanuts and do amazing things. But if we are launching parts for a permeant moon base, we are going to be paying for launches through spacex, since nasa doesn’t maintain shuttles or anything anymore. That’s millions more into the pockets of the most obscenely rich person on earth, who has zero concern for literally anyone but himself, and cuts every single corner he can. And there are always other manufacturing contracts that go out for this sort of thing and guess who is going to get all of those? That’s right, other rich assholes who cut corners and support facism. For a project with dubious usefulness. There is very little we can gain from a manned moon base, that can’t be accomplished in existing research facilities, or done more easily and cheaply by rovers.
Im aware that starlink is worse. Its owned by the same rich asshole who’s gunna be adding more debris from the launches for moon base parts. Funny how that works, isn’t it? But if you think building a permanent moon base is only gunna take a few launches, you are sorely mistaken. Each launch can only send up so much material, and even pre-made modules require work to actually assemble. The ISS, for example, required 40 assembly flights. Then we’ll be sending regular supply missions.
Thats a huge amount of pollution and littering for a stunt. And yeah, we can work on multiple things at once, but we aren’t. I addressed that in my original comment.