The media is currently awash in a tidal wave of manufactured sentiment. We are being told to celebrate the "historic" nature of the Artemis program through the lens of identity politics. Specifically, the narrative surrounding Ed Dwight—the first Black astronaut candidate—is being used as a shield to deflect from a much uglier reality.
Dwight’s story is poignant. It is a story of a pilot who was overlooked by a 1960s establishment that wasn't ready for him. But the sudden, aggressive pivot to centering his legacy in today's space race isn't an act of justice. It’s an act of distraction. While the press focuses on the optics of who gets to sit in the capsule, the actual mission to return to the moon is a bloated, bureaucratic nightmare that is years behind schedule and billions over budget. Discover more on a related topic: this related article.
We are prioritizing the "first" over the "fast." We are prioritizing the "who" over the "how." And in the vacuum of space, physics doesn't care about your demographic profile.
The Cost of the PR Mission
NASA is currently trapped in a cycle of performative legacy-building. The Space Launch System (SLS) is essentially a Frankenstein’s monster of Space Shuttle parts, designed not for efficiency, but to preserve jobs in specific congressional districts. It is a non-reusable, multi-billion-dollar firework. Additional reporting by The Next Web explores related views on this issue.
Each launch of the SLS costs roughly $2.2 billion. Compare that to the projected costs of SpaceX’s Starship or even the existing Falcon Heavy. We are burning capital on outdated technology while using identity-driven narratives to maintain public interest.
I have watched aerospace firms burn through venture capital by focusing on "inclusive branding" before they even have a working propulsion system. It is a systemic rot. When you prioritize the narrative over the engineering, the engineering fails. Every time.
The "lazy consensus" here is that representation in space travel is the ultimate metric of progress. It isn't. The ultimate metric of progress is the cost per kilogram to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). If we don't drop that cost, space remains a playground for a handful of government-funded elites, regardless of their skin color. True democratization of space isn't a diverse crew; it’s a cheap ticket.
Dismantling the Symbolic Progress Myth
People often ask: "Isn't it important for children to see themselves represented in the stars?"
Of course. But they should see themselves represented in a thriving, multi-planetary civilization, not a stagnant government program that manages one moon landing every fifty years.
By focusing on Ed Dwight’s missed opportunity in 1963, we are looking backward. We are litigating the 20th century while the 21st century is passing us by. The Chinese National Space Administration (CNSA) isn't spending its press cycles reflecting on the social inequities of the Ming Dynasty. They are landing rovers on the far side of the moon and building a modular space station with terrifying efficiency.
While we pat ourselves on the back for finally acknowledging a candidate from sixty years ago, our competitors are building the infrastructure to own the lunar south pole.
The Artemis Illusion
The Artemis program is marketed as "the first woman and the next man." This is a marketing slogan, not a mission profile.
- The SLS is Expendable: We are throwing away the engines and the boosters every single time. In an era of reusable rocketry, this is professional malpractice.
- The Lunar Gateway: A space station in lunar orbit that many experts, including former NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, have called a "stupid" distraction. It adds complexity, risk, and cost without a clear strategic necessity.
- Contracting Bloat: The "Cost-Plus" contract model ensures that the longer a project takes, the more the contractor gets paid.
This is the "battle scar" of industry veterans. We know that when the PR department starts hitting the "historical significance" button this hard, it’s usually because the "technical milestone" button is broken.
A Brutal Truth About Talent Density
In the 1960s, the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs were driven by a singular, existential goal: beat the Soviets. This created a culture of extreme meritocracy and risk-tolerance. Today, NASA is a jobs program and a diplomatic tool.
When you shift the focus from "mission success at any cost" to "mission optics for maximum consensus," you dilute the talent pool. I'm not saying the candidates aren't qualified—they are world-class pilots and scientists. I am saying the criteria for selection has shifted from "who can best survive a catastrophic failure" to "who looks best on a postage stamp."
If we want to honor Ed Dwight, we shouldn't give him a honorary seat on a suborbital joyride. We should build a space economy so robust and cheap that a thousand people with his talent can go to Mars.
Why We Are Asking the Wrong Questions
The press asks: "How does it feel to finally see a Black man on the path to the moon?"
The correct question is: "Why does it still cost $4,000 per pound to get to space, and why is the SLS still using 40-year-old RS-25 engines?"
If we don't fix the underlying economics, Artemis will be "Apollo 2.0"—a brief series of "flags and footprints" missions followed by another fifty years of low-earth orbit stagnation. We will have had our diverse crew, our beautiful photos, and our historic "firsts," and then we will go right back to being stuck on Earth because the budget ran out.
The Counter-Intuitive Path Forward
Stop the symbolic victory laps.
If we want to actually lead in space, we need to do three things that will be deeply unpopular with the current political establishment:
- Kill the SLS: Pivot entirely to fixed-price contracts with private providers. If Boeing or Lockheed can't build a reusable heavy-lift vehicle, they don't get the contract. Period.
- Ditch the Gateway: Go directly to the surface. Stop building "bus stops" in orbit that only exist to justify the existence of specific rocket configurations.
- End the Identity-First Press Strategy: Stop treating astronauts like characters in a screenplay. Treat them like the elite technical assets they are. Their background is irrelevant; their ability to manage a life-support failure in a high-radiation environment is everything.
The Risk of the Status Quo
The downside to this contrarian approach is obvious: it’s politically radioactive. Killing the SLS means losing thousands of jobs in Alabama and Florida. It means admitting that the last two decades of lunar planning were a sunk-cost fallacy. It means moving away from the "feel-good" stories that get taxpayers to open their wallets.
But the alternative is worse. The alternative is a future where the United States is a second-tier space power that has the most diverse, inclusive, and historically significant museum of grounded spacecraft in the world.
We are currently building a monument to the past while our competitors are building a bridge to the future. Ed Dwight deserved better in 1963. But the engineers of 2026 deserve a mission that isn't a PR stunt.
The moon doesn't care about your pride. It doesn't care about your history. It is a cold, dead rock that will kill you if your valves aren't machined to a tolerance that has nothing to do with your ancestors.
Stop looking at the faces in the helmets and start looking at the math in the telemetry. If the math doesn't change, the faces don't matter. We are currently failing the math.
