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TirayShell t1_ixacgsr wrote

I keep getting the feeling that the US is using Artemis as a kind of placeholder so they don't get edged out of all that free Moon real estate by the Chinese (among other countries with active lunar programs).

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404_Gordon_Not_Found t1_ixamw7j wrote

As far as manned lunar program goes America is the only one in the game, next is China. EU being a partner with the US and potentially China also means they will follow right behind the leaders. Russia has talked about a moon program but considering their situation rn I take it with a massive pile of salt.

Apart from that, Japan is on Artemis as well.

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ace17708 t1_ixfuxn4 wrote

Most launch vehicles are place holders in general. Once the technology freeze comes into place they will rarely add on modern innovations to existing/nearly complete launch vehicles. They're basically out of date on the first launch. Even during the hay day of the Saturn V they were working on the next one and they were working on several for the space shuttle. The Falcon 9 program is much a demo/test bed and will probably never make profit, but the successors of it 100% will be profitable if not very different from what we'd expect.

The ISS was a placeholder originally to prevent Russian brain drain and keep funding for nasa going.

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