I know the discourse about the rest of the context around NASA and the Artemis program - people will trot out the classic old "we should spend the money on the poor" or "we should just send robots" or "it's USA propaganda".

Fact is, crewed space flight is just Cool. I've heard more about Artemis than I have any specific space related thing since some of the first Mars rovers. And I think it's worth doing things like sending humans to space, or remote parts of the Earth, or the ocean, or whatever, even IF a drone could do it. Because humans like seeing humans doing things and being able to sit there and think "I/someone I love could be there doing that thing".

@JessTheUnstill The head of the mission went to the same college as me. That was immediately something exciting to talk to all my friends about.

Not to mention, NASA has been responsible for creating an incredible amount of the actual, real technology we use on earth today. And it was created to solve problems in space travel.

(If you're not familiar, check out For All Mankind. It's an alternate history show that asks "what would have happened if we spent more on space travel?" and it's SO fun.)