What NASA really has in mind with the Artemis Program

The Artemis program is touted by NASA as the next step in manned space flight. Supposedly, it will be a low cost follow-up, after more than half a century, to the Apollo program. For a tenth the price, a lunar program as intense as the Apollo program can now be pursued, supposedly, anyway, as a result of the "wonderful" new reusable space rockets built by your friend, and mine, Elon Musk. The first woman and the first "person of color" will be landed on the Moon. All very, very politically correct, indeed. And all, of course, very, very, very far from the actual truth, indeed. Disinformation about the manned space program is something of a grand tradition within NASA, of course. The Apollo program was, according to Neil Armstrong anyway, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Actually it was simply one small step for mankind. No one really benefited from it other than the scientists and engineers at NASA. The Space Shuttle program was supposed to make space travel as inexpensive as conventional air travel, because of -- wait for it Elon -- "total reusability". Actually the Space Shuttle was even more expensive than conventional rockets because of reusability. The International Space Station was the first permanent colony in space, the gateway to the New Frontier. Does anyone know any significant benefit from the International Space Station to anyone other than NASA related employees? The really interesting thing about the Artemis Program, if you look into it, is that there are no actual planned manned landings on the Moon, at all. None. The thirty-five billion dollars is to be spent entirely on unmanned missions to survey the Moon and to land pieces of a planned permanent manned lunar base, without actually sending any astronauts there to inhabit it. There is no technology or money to do that. Not yet, anyway. You see, that's why the program's so much less expensive than the Apollo program. No one is actually going to go to the Moon, in the Artemis program. Oh, there are "proposals" to land astronauts on the Moon. Just no money or technology to do it with, at the moment, anyway. And, these things generally take decades to develop, so, don't hold your breath if you're expecting anyone on the moon in the next decade or two. So, in ten years we'll have the makings of a permanent lunar habitat, but, no way to get astronauts there, or to supply them. NASA is hoping that somehow this will inspire people to "take the next step". Best of luck with that, guys!