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Comment by sashahrzg | Hacker News Reader

What do you think the Artemis missions are for? The goal isn't a PR win or anything. Real science is happening. Even stuff like the Apollo missions gave us technology we still use today. With NASA those discoveries are more open and available to all. Elon and other oligarchs would have a financial incentive to hoard any advancement they make.

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> What do you think the Artemis missions are for?

To justify pumping billions of USD into Shuttle-era contractors who would've otherwise gone bankrupt a decade ago. NASA is doing the best it can with what it's been given, but Artemis and its predecessors are a Congress-mandated jobs program.

> To justify pumping billions of USD into Shuttle-era contractors who would've otherwise gone bankrupt a decade ago.

You might have a case with Aerojet Rocketdyne - not sure if they can survive on RL-10 sales alone. But the others: Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrup Grumman, aren't depending on SLS contracts to survive. It's just a nice cherry on top of their defense and commercial contracts.

You're right, that was somewhat hyperbolic on my part. Last time I checked, AR was in rough shape after losing the contract for the Vulcan first stage engines to Blue Origin. Losing SLS would probably break them, but the rest aren't in such dire straits.

Artemis is a political prestige project.

We need some of that right now though

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