Because human beings are remarkably capable, especially the best and the brightest. There's a great paper called the "dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency." https://academic.oup.com/astrogeo/article-abstract/53/2/2.22... // https://lasp.colorado.edu/mop/files/2019/08/RobotMyth.pdf

Yes, a robot car that drives on its own will be a better driver than most humans who text and drive, or have 400ms reaction times.

But making a machine that can beat a 110ms reaction time human with 2SD+ IQ, and the ability to override the ground controllers with human curiosity is much harder. Humans have high dexterity, are extremely capable of switching roles fast, are surprisingly efficient, and force us to return back home.

So in terms of total science return, one Apollo mission did more for lunar science and discovery than 53 years of robots on the surface and in orbit.

I suspect it's the optics of it.

If you can fly people around the moon, then landing people on the moon is a more reasonable next step.

I agree that it may not be entirely logical, but keeping public and funding opinion positive & invested _is_ important.

edit: I thought RocketLab flew their elecron rocket around the moon a few years ago? So it's definitely doable... so again I think it's about the optics.

Because the goal of the program is to return humans to the moon. Artemis I was the unmanned test. This is the first manned test, and what they learn will support the subsequent missions that eventually land humans on the moon.

This is the same way that all manned spaceflight programs are conducted. You iterate and learn a little bit at a time. "Move fast and break things" doesn't work here. :)

Because they want to be on the rocket. To see the moon up close with your own eyes? It's spiritual.

Yeah. Doesn't really make sense. The entire mission could be done remotely.

Even with a goal of eventually putting humans on the moon, it'd be better to do an automated run, measure everything in the cockpit, and put in sandbags and/or something to consume O2 to make sure the CO2 scrubbers are working correctly. It's maybe cruel, but a few dogs would work fine for that sort of thing. A flame would be better, but it's pretty dangerous.

The first mission in decades doesn't need to have humans in it.

It is a test of the spacecraft. They need people onboard to test all the human systems. But yes, if this was a purely scientific flyby and not part of a larger manned program, machines would do it fine.