Just saw the absolutely braindead take that the Artemis II mission is "pure American propaganda," and I felt the sudden urge to explode.
Like, how stupid can you be? Do you understand how long it takes to actually successfully conduct a mission like this? Do you earnestly think this years-long, nearly decade-long, project was created specifically to distract from a war that wasn't happening and wasn't even something people considered a possibility when the project began? Do you genuinely believe that the purpose of this mission is not scientific? That we're learning nothing from this? That this does not represent a massive step for all of humanity?
This mission isn't even entirely made up of people from the United States - one of the astronauts aboard is Canadian! Like, yes, that's American in the literal sense of "person from North/South America", but it's very clear that that's not what the author of that post meant by "American."
People are so fucking dismissive of my entire field because they cannot see the importance of studying the universe beyond Earth because "we don't live there."
NEWSFLASH! THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS OUR HOME!!
We can learn so much about where we live by studying what else is out there! Every single thing we learn about space, the moon, other planets, asteroids, comets, stars, etc. - it all helps us paint a better picture of Earth and of ourselves and of our place in the universe!
Acting like space research is just a tool for propaganda and that it holds no importance outside of that is just foolish, ignorant, and frankly reprehensible to me.
Are you not curious? Do you not feel the pull to explore the heavens? Do you not want to know what it's like beyond our atmosphere? Do you not care about who we are and where we come from and why we exist? Do you not see that the exploration and study of space is one of the only things in this era of strife and hatred that still manages to unite us?
There are people in space right now who have gone further away from Earth than any people ever have before, and all you care about is conspiracy theories and complaining.
Grow up.
