Opinion: Why are we going to the moon?

With astronauts Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, Christina Koch, and Reid Weisman tucked inside, Artemis II took off from Cape Canaveral on April 1, 2026. And it wasn’t an April Fool’s joke.

Eight million pounds of thrust lifted the 73,735 pounds of space craft off the launching pad and started its slingshot trip to the Moon. This mission costs somewhere between $4.1 and $4.2 billion, but the overall Artemis program had a total expense of $93 billion, through 2025.

The “space toilet” (technically Upper Waste Management System) alone, the malfunction of which drew immediate concern, was $23 million. As we ponder these expenses, mostly borne by U.S. taxpayers (although there is some investment by industry and international sources), we must ask the quintessential question: Why go to the moon?