I hate to break it to everyone but science is dead in the US and space exploration is by far the least worrying collapse in scientific institutions here.

Just watch Smarter Every Day to see how much pork Artemis is.

Destin is a conservative jackass who just happens to like science a little bit. I wouldn't trust his opinions on budgets.

Some of us are okay with NASA being the largest jobs program in the US.

Scientist here. This is probably true. America used to be a draw for very smart and capable people from around the world. Why would those people choose to come here? For homegrown folks why would they choose science when that career won’t pay them? Even before these attempted cuts the rates of science funding were already terrible.

It is worse than just the international scientific community correctly identifying that science in the US is being actively dismantled by openly hostile forces with violence, it is that the interruption and dismantling of these systems, especially given the lackluster attention the US public puts into funding Science in the US, has locked in the longterm damage already. The battle is already far past lost and honestly it is infuriating sitting here watching people not yet coming to terms with that because they still have magical positive thinking around how politics intersects with Science in 2026.

The destruction of the vital systems of Science is not something that simply can be restarted, the US will never recover in the realm of Science, the damage is already too severe. To explain why is to have to explain every single Scientific endeavor that relies upon a basic social safety net and an enveloping societal valuing of the desire to understand the world as it is, which is most of them. Temporarily stopping the heart of Science in the US is as fatal as permanently stopping it, that is how the organ of Science functions in modern societies.

As someone who got a degree in a Science, I honestly find it insulting that people think the heart of Science can stop in the US for awhile and just be restarted at a later date. It was a living thing and now it is dead. That is why we were making such a desperate noise about all of this stuff actually, maybe people should have been listening harder?

Was gonna post this - he invited fucking Jared palestinian genocide and Pedolf's sex fantasy doll onto the channel under a stupid "we should keep open the dialogue" pretense.

I dont even want to eat your food. Full of toxins.

If by 'lunar success' we mean taking pictures of the Moon's surface, lunar orbiters have doing that for decades. If we mean going there and returning to the Earth, that was done by Apollo 8. So far, it was a successful test of new equipment to do the same old things.
NASA has announced no clear plan for what will happen next ... or for what purpose ... unlike the clear plan to ruin healthcare and education for millions, science for 10s of thousands. Oh and to lie about how LLMs are 'A.I.' (which is at least 25 years in the future). Even Apollo was most successful at returning P.R. and not much else.

No need to learn science when a high portion of the population believes in magic sky daddies. Theocratic rule is what they seek.

Because the Artemis program was basically forced on NASA by lobbyists/Congress. That's why most of their plans for a lunar lander involved sending a second rocket.

Religion doesn't really have to do with this, being antiscience does. One does not equal the other.