alt Hacker NewsOrion is actually pointless, I don't understand why the mission goals are valuable. Partial success would be meaningless. Success is meaningless.
Starship in contrast has a variety of meaningful objectives. Even if Starship only achieves proving that cryogenic fuel transfer in LEO is possible that's a valuable mission goal in and of itself.
If you really think "the whole moon thing is pointless" NASA is pointless.
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> If you really think "the whole moon thing is pointless" NASA is pointless.
There's more to NASA than Artemis! NASA's robotic spaceflight programs generate extremely high science return at relatively low cost. Missions like Psyche, Europa Clipper, and Dragonfly are humanity's real explorers.
And their aeronautics work is valuable as well. Low-boom, etc.
NASA does not seem to be constituted to be able to engage in a coherent manned space program of actual value. It's a long standing systemic issue.
They are great at pretending to deliver value, but there's no "there" there.