Tldr the race is with China. We sound likely to lose a bunch of planetary exploration to send humans back to the moon where they already went 55 years ago, to make a symbolic point.

I feel compelled to comment here (a Lemmy forum centred around itjust.works?) about another comment (on a Zenforo forum centred around arstechnica.com?) about another comment (on a Disqus forum centred around thespacereview.com?) about the ICPS.

for Arty 3, SLS doesn't need to launch with an ICPS at all: it's perfectly capable of getting an Orion to LEO using only the core and SRBs. ... This requires that somebody (likely Teledyne-Brown) manufacture an adapter ... If they can get this done in a bit more than a year, Arty 3 could be ready to go in 4Q2027. That then leaves the ICPS that was meant for Arty 3 available for Arty 4, which should be the Moon landing.

I wonder whether this is a good idea, and how likely it is that NASA would have already considered it.

Again? I suppose when your empire is creatively bankrupt and too actually bankrupt to go to Mars you gotta find some way to steal money and put it in Elon's wallet.

https://sh.itjust.works/post/56788160

Will Robinson-Smith interview of Jared Isaacman, upload date 2026-03-14, https://youtu.be/q_Y0qUQUbrk :

We haven't even determined if we're going to use ICPS on Artemis 3. We may not have to.