The word that best describes our present NASA lunar program is “delusional.”
Artemis, a program based on fantasy
Increasingly it appears everyone in Congress, the White House, and NASA, as well as our bankrupt mainstream press, has become utterly divorced from reality in talking about NASA’s Artemis lunar program. The claims are always absurd and never deal with the hard facts on the ground. Instead, it is always “Americans are piorneers! We are great at building things! We are going to beat China to the Moon!”
An interview of interim NASA administration (and Transportation secretary) Sean Duffy yesterday on the Sean Hannity Show made all these delusions very clear. First Hannity introduced Duffy by stating with bald-faced ignorance that “NASA has a brand-new program. It is called Artemis that aims to get astronauts back on the Moon in the next couple of years.”
I emphasize “brand-new” because anyone who has done even two seconds of research on the web will know that Artemis has existed now for more than a decade. Hannity illustrates his incompetence right off the bat.
Duffy then proceeds to insist that the next Artemis mission, dubbed Artemis-2, will fly in April 2026 and send four astronauts around the Moon, followed by the Artemis-3 manned landing one year later.
Being an incompetent member of the propaganda press, Hannity of course accepts these claims without question. He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield, which experienced extensive unexpected damage that is still not understood during its return on the first Artemis mission in 2022.
Nor does either Duffy or Hannity mention the fact that for Artemis to land humans on the Moon SpaceX’s Starship not only has to become operational for human passengers, it needs an in-orbit refueling capability that does not yet exist. I have full confidence that SpaceX will eventually succeed in achieving these benchmarks, but I also doubt it will be able to do it by mid-2027, as claimed by Duffy.
Duffy and Hannity however are not alone in living in this dream world. Though Trump tried in his 2026 budget proposal to end funding for SLS and Orion after that Artemis-3 landing mission in 2027, Congress insisted on re-instating funding for two more SLS/Orion missions, Artemis-4 and Artemis-5. Somehow both Congress and Trump think that the 2027 Artemis-3 lunar landing is going to happen as scheduled, just because NASA says so. No matter that Congress has been funneling gobs of cash to SLS and Orion now for more than a decade with nothing real to show for it. No matter that NASA had promised Trump in 2017 it would land humans on the Moon by 2024. No matter that this landing date keeps getting pushed back endlessly. And no matter that the lunar landing version of Starship is almost certianly not going to be ready on time.
All in all, reality seems to have nothing to do with what Trump, Congress, and Duffy think about this entire program.
Damage to Orion’s heat shield caused during re-entry in 2022,
including “cavities resulting from the loss of large chunks”.
Nor has this issue been fixed.
Even the astronauts who plan to fly around the Moon on Artemis-2 April 2026 seem unconnected to reality. In extensive comments published today, they repeatedly dismissed any concerns about Orion’s heat shield issues. As noted by one of the astronauts for that mission, Christina Koch:
Koch echoed Glover’s confidence [another mission astronaut], adding that the “appropriate skepticism” is ultimately why the crew feels comfortable with the craft’s heat shield. “This should be characterized as a true American success story,” Hansen added. “I mean, this country now knows things about heat shield technology it didn’t know it didn’t know. And that’s like, that’s the art — that’s when you know you’re pushing the boundaries.”
The problem is that this is untrue. NASA at this point doesn’t understand why Orion’s heat shield experienced so much damage during the Artemis-1 first unmanned mission. All the agency has done is to change the flight profile for Artemis-2 in the hope this will minimize heat shield damage when the astronauts return from circling the Moon.
Furthermore, neither the reporter nor any of the astronauts thought it worthwhile to mention that they will be flying in an Orion capsule that will be using its environmental systems for the very first time. Those are the systems that provide them air to breathe. If SpaceX had tried to fly any NASA astronauts in a Dragon capsule with an untested environmental system you can be sure NASA would have screamed bloody murder.
The bottom line is that this entire program is predicated on lies and ignorant rationalizations. Worse, it is being fueled by the childish desire to get back to the Moon before China, a goal that is superficial at best and unimportant in the long run.
I have been arguing now since December 2024 that we should stop focusing blindly this fake goal of getting back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and instead build a robust competitive space industry that thrives in space, everywhere, beginning in low Earth orbit but quickly expanding outward as its capabilities grow. No single goal, such as planting a flag on the Moon, should dominate. Instead, the government should use NASA to encourage the development of a whole range of space capabilities, from fully reusable rockets to space stations to orbital tugs to robotic satellite repair to space junk removal.
Unfortunately, no one in government appears interested in what I have to say. Instead we have this delusional space program that not only is risking four lives on a questionable fling around the Moon in April 2026, it makes believe it can accomplish things it can’t, while wasting billions in taxpayer funds that we no longer have.
And I see nothing changing in the next two years. If anything, I expect this foolishness to continue, with added force. And I fear deeply that it is going to end up killing people in missions to the Moon that are simply not ready.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
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And Elon time isn’t delusional?
Orion didn’t look like this inside at least
https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/comments/1i2hxta/another_day_another_leaked_starship_internal_view/
Robert wrote: “ The claims are always absurd and never deal with the hard facts on the ground. Instead, it is always ‘Americans are piorneers! We are great at building things! We are going to beat China to the Moon!’”
These aren’t absurd claims. American’s are pioneers. We are great at building things, although sometimes they don’t work right the thirteenth time. And we already have Beat China to the Moon.™
Well, I guess it is absurd to declare that we will beat them to the Moon again, having already done it.
“NASA has a brand-new program. It is called Artemis that aims to get astronauts back on the Moon in the next couple of years.”
Yeah, I noticed that, too. Getting back to the Moon is two decades old, under Bush, 43. The name “Artemis” is more than half a decade old, under Trump, 47. The only thing new about the Moon mission is … um … the Transportation Secretary is in charge of it.
“ He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield, which experienced extensive unexpected damage that is still not understood during its return on the first Artemis mission in 2022.”
Gee. Safety is overrated. Just because you don’t understand the problem does not mean that the kluged solution you came up with won’t work. I mean, there’s a real chance it could work. You just don’t know that it will work, and if the astronauts are willing to risk it, who are we to question them? After all, it isn’t as though any space projects were cancelled because of lost crews. Well, other than Apollo and the Space Shuttle — NASA’s two most recent manned spacecraft — and the X-15, the only American spacecraft that killed crews. Just because NASA’s track record is less than stellar does not mean we should not put enormous faith in their abilities. Fortunately, NASA learned to take along a lifeboat, which saved the Apollo 13 crew, so NASA has one of those for Artemis 2, just in case, right? Right?
“Hansen added. ‘I mean, this country now knows things about heat shield technology it didn’t know it didn’t know. And that’s like, that’s the art — that’s when you know you’re pushing the boundaries.’”
Well, actually, this country now knows that it doesn’t know things about heat shield technology that it previously didn’t know it didn’t know. That is different than what Astronaut Hansen said.
And the boundaries should be pushed during research and development, not during normal manned operations. That is when you should know, not ‘not know.’
“Koch echoed Glover’s confidence [another mission astronaut], adding that the ‘appropriate skepticism’ is ultimately why the crew feels comfortable with the craft’s heat shield. ‘This should be characterized as a true American success story,’”
“Appropriate skepticism” does not mean confidence. It means a lack of confidence, and deservedly so. Skepticism puts Artemis and Orion in the development phase, not the operational phase. Your project should inspire confidence, not skepticism, when it is operational.
I will wait for actual success before characterizing it as a success story. Right now, it is just a scary story, a little like the movie Marooned.
“Furthermore, neither the reporter nor any of the astronauts thought it worthwhile to mention that they will be flying in an Orion capsule that will be using its environmental systems for the very first time. Those are the systems that provide them air to breathe.”
And warmth and cooling. I would also include food, water, and waste disposal.
It isn’t as though an oxygen tank might explode during the voyage. When has that ever happened before? What could possibly go wrong, and how dare it go wrong when the astronauts are the farthest away from home and safety?
“If SpaceX had tried to fly any NASA astronauts in a Dragon capsule with an untested environmental system you can be sure NASA would have screamed bloody murder.”
In fact, NASA had required that both Dragon and Starliner be flown unmanned to the ISS, part of which was to test the environmental system in orbit.
“I have been arguing now since December 2024 that we should stop focusing blindly this fake goal of getting back to the Moon ahead of the Chinese, and instead build a robust competitive space industry that thrives in space, everywhere, beginning in low Earth orbit but quickly expanding outward as its capabilities grow.”
Thriving industry in space has never been NASA’s forte. They are at their best when they are puttering around making it look like progress, with experiments galore but no products or services to We the People who pay the bills at NASA.
NASA hasn’t even done anything about cleaning space junk out of orbit. The Europeans have and Japan has, at least in the testing of various concepts, but NASA only deorbits a small portion of its active satellites at the end of their lives, and lets other dead satellites reenter randomly to fall onto Australia.
Besides, as we have seen. when commercial space becomes dominant, NASA becomes less relevant, and then it has to be downsized, and we have seen that NASA employees are reluctant to leave their cushy government jobs to join or found commercial-space companies.
https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/government-employees-the-most-spoiled-and-privileged-individuals-on-earth/
“And I fear deeply that it is going to end up killing people in missions to the Moon that are simply not ready.”
Taking these kinds of risks are tolerable when something important is at stake. Apollo was risky, but we did it anyway because it was an important battle in the Cold War. Even then, Apollo 13 scared us out of there final missions to the Moon.
Risk explains why we allowed government to make Apollo a top-down project, but we never should have let the rest of space be strictly government run. With Apollo, we were trying to prove that free-market capitalism beats out marxism, but we let a marxist philosophy rule the mission. Capitalism was able to provide the enormous funding for the project, but we should also have been allowed to expand our economic system into space operations.
Instead, we had let government be in charge of space operations, and all we got was what government wanted. This American return to the Moon is once again not a free-market capitalist project but another marxist one. If there are good things to be gained by putting a permanent manned presence on the Moon, then free-market capitalists would be the best people to do it. They will find efficiencies that make sense, and they will make a profit doing it. Profit is the reward for finding efficiencies.
Commercial space companies are doing a fine job of replacing the ISS, and for far less expense than the ISS was to build. Efficiencies are already found.
NASA should be changing its mission from one of doing all the space Operations for Americans into a mission similar to the NACA, helping Americans remain the best in aerospace.
I say this as a card carrying Republican and a Trump voter/supporter: Hannity is a tool and a fool. He will buff and shine this turd as needed until….
I say this as a card carrying Republican, Trump voter/supporter: Hannity is nothing more than a tool and a fool. He will buff and polish this turd until…
Fox is under orders to not say anything good about Musk or his rockets anyway:)
Sad to say, Fox News really hasn’t been worth watching since Tucker Carlson was shown the door, and Mr. Duffy’s interview on the Hannity show merely confirms this. Indeed, looking at Fox “news” these days is akin to watching Boxer the Horse (before being sent to the glue factory like Lou Dobbs*) clopping with his hooves — Trump goood, clop, clop; Democrats baaad, clop, clop.
*Lou Dobbs, who was also shoved into the Fox memory hole, actually was an early advocate of the commercialization of space. (from Google) “Mr Dobbs has expressed strong interest and belief in the potential of space as a business frontier. He co-authored the book “Space: The Next Business Frontier,” which explores the financial opportunities and technological advancements in space exploration. He also served as CEO of Space.com, a website dedicated to space news and information.” Just to note, Mr. Dobbs passed away last
year. He is missed.
Now Mr. Hannity appears to be their “expert” on all things related to space, and short of hiring Robert to restore some kind of credibility to their coverage, it appears that they are as happy as pigs in “stuff” promoting such invincible ignorance. (Long before Fox came on the scene, Newton Minnow presciently described broadcasts like theirs as part of a “vast wasteland,” and it is hard to disagree.
PS — Having said all of this, I suppose that it should be noted that Fox *did* play a major role in promoting the candidacy of Donald Trump and opposing the social agenda of the Jacobin Democrats, and for this they are owed an enormous debt of gratitude. Having helped to save the country — and, again, thanks for this — it would be nice if Fox could somehow revert to being an actual credible news organization, but that is probably asking for too much. Trump good, Ds bad, clop, clop.
“All the agency has done is to change the flight profile for Artemis-2”
Where is their actual in-flight testing prior to risking human lives? Because that worked out so well with Starliner… If they made a similar basic capsule, with heat shield options (maybe work with SpaceX and what they’ve already found out by testing) and the enviromental system with sensors so they can monitor it, that they could put on a far less expensive Falcon 9, where at least it wouldn’t break the bank to actually do a few launches to test it, and maybe they could finally get answers instead of guesses. What they save on the rockets might make a test capsule affordable and, if it survives, reusable for additional testing. Not like they actually need to go as far as the moon to test the heat shield/environment.
At least Musk has been trying to test heat shields and, now that he’s not distracted by politics, he probably has a better chance to find an answer. Especially if NASA and the FAA stop dragging out approvals for testing. Have to wonder how much of SpaceX explanations they even fully understand? It’s not like SpaceX doesn’t want to find as many possible issues as they can and fully resolve them in order to advance. That’s why they keep testing instead of going with the flight looked mostly good with only ‘minor’ thruster/heat shield issues (that we don’t understand) that probably won’t be a problem when we add people. NASA astronauts (bless them) may accept the risks but that’s no excuse to avoid trying to fix known issues before sending them up.
The term “The Vastness of Space” can accurately describe the inside of that pompous, egomaniacal Hannity’s gigantic head. Hannity and NASA have a lot in common, namely NASA wastes billions of dollars due to incompetence while millions of dollars are wasted on paying Hannity to be a blathering idiot on Fox. Both need to go away.
Mr. Zimmerman said no one in Gov’t listens to what he says – as Bill Clinton once said “I feel your pain”! I’m a simple, common sense man. I don’t have the patience to reward ignorance nor stupidity with my time. I surely don’t think that we should be wasting BILLION$ on “getting back to the moon”! What’s up there that’s so important? We already found out way back in 1969 that it wasn’t Green Cheese!! We should be working on a Space Program to PROTECT Our Nation! The Russians and Chinese have so-called “killer satellites to be used to knock out OURS. Surely our NASA people know that (if it’s true – sure it is) and working on counter measures!
As far as the failed heat shields – why not ask MR. MUSK?? If you’re going to spend BILLION$ at least do it INTELLIGENTLY!
This article is correct. Artemis has been delusional from the start. Starship is taking a long time to get going, but that’s just the start. I’m still not clear on how Starship lands on the surface of the moon for the first time. Once they are able to create a nice, level, debris-free landing field, things will be pretty easy, but Starship doesn’t seem to be built to land on an uneven surface. It’s also not clear to me how cargo gets unloaded.
If they would just step aside and let SpaceX design the mission profile, then I think a lot of the weirdness might go away. Starship could be the transport and a dedicated lunar lander could be created to do the elevator duty up and down. Cargo could be containerized for easy transshipment. And so on. NASA is great at exploration, but a lousy bus company.
He fails to question Duffy about the serious issues with the Orion heat shield
Well, TECHNICALLY, landing folks on the moon doesn’t require much in the way of heat shields. It’s just getting them home again (alive) that is the problem. And, hey, if you can successfully get them there, you can always leave them for 6 months or so while Elon works on a rescue, right?
NASA’s repeatedly failed, so-called Safety community and the Astronaut community have bought off on flying that self-described kluge.
These are the same parties responsible for the death of at least six Astronauts.
It’s amazing that NASA hasn’t learned a darn thing since it’s glory days.
Things are now so politicized at NASA that the truth doesn’t even matter anymore, it’s how well you have your ass covered.
They need to test that HS again before anyone flies on it.
These people make me continued to be ashamed that I devoted half of my professional career to the manned flight program.
It has been corrupted to the core.
BLSinSC
August 1, 2025 at 5:35 am
What’s up there that’s so important?
The high ground. If you want a place from which to protect orbital infrastructure, Luna is one good place to do so.
No, it’s not ideal, but there’s very little “ideal” in space. It gives you other options than orbital ones or Earth-based ones.
I miss Hugh Downs and Jack Anderson as well.
Rereading Robert’s commentary, it appears that NASA has not so much a “new” program but rather a chaotic and incoherent one*. And as he observes, we would probably be better off in the long run without such “national space projects” and just let the private sector do its thing in a productive and cost effective fashion. The problem is, we appear to be stuck with some version of the Artemis program, but nobody seems to know how to make sure that the thing actually functions as intended. That is, nobody appears to know how all of the pieces are supposed to fit together or even if they will work. What kind of a “program” is that, and — tellingly — nobody seems to have been tasked to make any sense of it. (Given such agency incoherence, could we forgive the press for being at least a *little* confused?)
*As Robert also suggests, any well-informed journalist would have zeroed in on exactly this aspect with Mr. Duffy and held his feet to the fire.
Worse, so long as President Trump and Elon Musk remain at political loggerheads, you have what are essentially two antagonistic cultures — with very different goals — trying to work together to sort out an ill-defined mission that doesn’t even have a clearly stated objective other than “beating China to the moon.” Boys and girls, can you say “FUBAR”?
Again, over the long term, the Artemis mission might not even matter that much, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could at least get something useful in return for the vast amount of money that is being spent on it? Very simply, what is Artemis supposed to “do,” and what will be needed to make it work? And is it too much to ask that our government come up with some coherent answers?
Since Artemis scheduling seems delusional, what are the possibilities that it’s a head fake operation to get China to focus on the Moon instead of other more lucrative, effective, useful space projects?
The USA already beat China and everyone else to the moon. Stop letting others dictate the narrative.
DUH.