Since the launch of the Artemis II shuttle on April 1st, which is sending four human bodies to orbit the Moon and return safely after ten days, the media and commentators are getting excited about this event as if it were a significant scientific or technological breakthrough. Canadians seem even more enthusiastic than Americans because one of their own will be circling the Moon for the first time, all thanks to American investments in NASA.
However, a minimum of critical thinking begs the question: what is the purpose of this less than two-week trip in a small space capsule following the Earth’s gravitational laws? The media talks about “space exploration” and even “science,” but in reality, this expedition serves no scientific purpose. It only proves that it took over a hundred billion dollars to relive the Apollo 8 mission launched on December 21, 1968, and returned safely just after Christmas. On a political level, the presence of a Canadian in the crew confirms that the United States indeed considers Canada as a 51st state and includes its citizens in the “diversity.” The scientific void (and even technological) is filled with claims that this aspect of the mission (presence of a woman and a Black person) is “critical”!
And as absurdity knows no bounds, Prime Minister Mark Carney claims that having a Canadian onboard confirms that Canada is “a country of explorers,” even though King Charles III’s subject won’t explore anything at all…
One thing is certain: by focusing public communication on the fact that the crew members are humans, it quickly overshadows the fact that this flight and those to follow serve no scientific purpose and only have a political meaning: to reignite the absurd competition with China, which aims to show its power and, by 2030, do what Americans did sixty years ago: land a Chinese person on the Moon who will plant a flag alongside the American flag, adding the Chinese Communist Party flag to the lunar landscape. What a great scientific advance!
To make the public believe there is original science in this trip to the Moon, they mention the future (very hypothetical) when humans will return to the lunar surface to better understand its geology, look for water, and perhaps rare metals. This overlooks the fact that robots are already doing this work quite well and at a lower cost, without risking human lives. Chinese scientists have even successfully landed a robot on the far side of the Moon in 2024, collected soil samples, and returned them to Earth, much to the delight of scientists who can now analyze them in the lab and perform real science.
It is also mentioned that once a permanent base is established on the Moon, it would allow for “exploring other planets.” Apart from Mars, which is not very welcoming to humans, one wonders which planet could accommodate them. Considering the enormous material and human resources needed to build launch ramps, anyone should understand that, even for Mars, it will obviously be simpler and less costly to launch from Earth than from the Moon.
While there is continuous talk of “artificial intelligence,” the real space exploration for scientific purposes is and will be done with robots. It is also forgotten that while billions of dollars are wasted to relive the past and excite the nationalist fervor of some, governments are cutting budgets of actual scientific research organizations due to imposing structural deficits.
In the United States, the Mars Return Sample mission, which was supposed to bring back Martian soil samples collected by the Perseverance rover, was canceled by NASA in January 2026, much to the dismay of scientists. As for Canada, it has cut federal funding agency budgets by 3%, and there is no indication that they will increase, given the very high level of the federal deficit.
