alt Hacker NewsA lot of the discussion overlooks or wishes to avoid an uncomfortable problem with the Artemis program: Artemis III's hardware will not be ready for the forseeable future. The program has had multiple shakeups so far. This is a program heading for cancellation.
The flight risk is surely acceptable if this is not the first flight of many but the last.
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I understand the point you’re making, but if this is a programme doomed to achieve nothing, that makes the risk even less acceptable.
I think you mean Artemis IV (the moon landing)? Artemis III is now a near Earth orbit mission to dock with whatever mockup lander SpaceX or Blue Origin can throw up in time.
You're saying that as if Artemis III is going to be the first time Artemis eats delays.
What I'm seeing from Artemis recently is "good signs of life" rather than the opposite.
They acknowledged that Artemis III is "system tests" rather than "a full landing", which gives it far better chances of happening before 2030. They're trimming the fat deposits from the program by removing things like Gateway or NRHO. They're pushing for a more aggressive launch cadence. They're actually seriously bringing up "a persistent Moon base" and "manned flights every 6 months" as Artemis program goals.
This is more focus and ambition than what NASA had in actual literal decades.
The threat of a Chinese moon landing keeps the Artemis program alive. As long as Artemis is slowly working towards the goal of eventually landing Americans on the surface of the moon and eventually building a habitat they can be injected with money and manpower whenever geopolitical or ideological demands arise. If it was canceled outright it would be much harder to react to any Chinese success