alt Hacker NewsYou’re not seeing better engines because there aren’t any. We are reaching the limits of physics.
That’s why we are working on alternatives like refueling in space or reusable ships.
The Artemis missions are testing things that we still have a lot of area to improve upon — materials (a huge one), international standards for things like docking ports, computing, radiation safety, and a lot more.
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Artemis II doesn’t have any docking hardware since it won’t have anything to dock with. And Artemis in general is just using the IDSS used on the ISS and by Dragon and Starliner, nothing new being discovered or tested there.
<snark>Did we really need to spend $90 billion and send people past the Moon to troubleshoot Bluetooth?</snark>[1]
Sharing because this seems to capture the je ne sais quoi that seems off about Artemis for me.
1. https://github.com/RICLAMER/Artemis_II_2026
NASA's Artemis II Live Views from Orion, 04 - Day 1-2 - 03-04-2026 - 1645-Transcript-EN.txt: "03/04/2026 - 18:57:27 (-3 TMZ) | 01:23:22:27 (Artemis Clock) "No joy seeing the device in the list of available devices when I attempt to re-pair it after doing the Bluetooth forget."
Yeah, RS25/SSME still have a higher specific impulse than any boost stage engine in operation, past or present.