My generation supposedly saw man land on the moon in 1969 so why should I be impressed by Artemis II? Almost 60 years has elapsed since that Apollo 11 mission in 1969 so what has changed in space travel? Well as far as I can see not much. By now people in my generation might have come to expect huge leaps in technology. Think of the Walkman to the ipod. Vinyl to cds. Mobile phones to watches and computers and ipads and the tech behind apps for our phones. Things have moved on in technology in ways that was unimaginable 60 years ago. By now we might have been forgiven for expecting space travel to be as we came to expect in Startrek.
We may now be expecting a nice big spacious ship, with gravity, with cabins and private toilets. However that isn’t the reality. We still rely on rockets for space travel. We have all the inconvenience of no gravity where we loose things and quite frankly it looks absurd and rather undignified just floating about in an ungainly fashion. We still have no alternative fuels or propulsion methods to take us into hyperspace. No in fact it’s rather a disappointment: a crowded space ship with no privacy or creature comforts. Things are basically as they were in the Apollo Missions just slightly bigger.
Look, we even landed on the moon last time in 1969. After that the Moon became old hat. There’s was nothing much there for us after Apollo and we just got bored with it. It is a barren place and in terms of the Universe it is a minute step. Not much in terms of space exploration really and in comparison to the achievements of Startrek.
We are no where near to exploration of other galaxy’s. It’s a run of 100 metres against a marathon. The rocket propulsion system is outdated, costly and outdated. If we going to get further we need alternative methods of propulsion. If we are to build Space Stations we need to be able to transport far more than 4 people at a time. We would need a workforce of people and a vast amount of materials from which to build these Space Stations. We are a long way of that at the moment. Think of the huge costs involved just to take 4 people on a jolly holiday around the moon. The costs to transport an army of workers and materials would be astronomical and not cost effective.
We also need much more radical design for these spaceships that have more style and much greater comfort built in. Artemis is like taking a Morris Minor to the moon with all that associated discomfort. So I am just not that impressed and doubt that any others from the Boomer generation would be that impressed either. My imagination leapt with Startrek’s adventures in a spaceship that met our expectations and aspirations: it’s just a pity that technology couldn’t keep up with those expectations. Artemis ii falls short in so many ways.