After a few failed launch attempts, Artemis I finally completed its first unmanned journey on December 12, 2022. It’s part of NASA’s ambitious program to bring American astronauts back to the moon for the first time in half a century. And then on to Mars. That is, assuming NASA can pull it off, which is a big question mark given its record to date. Is the project worth hundreds of billions of government dollars? Is NASA just trying to relive the glory of the Apollo mission?

Could private companies take us back to the moon and Mars faster and cheaper? Most likely, yes. …

“Basically [Artemis] is designed to repeat the Apollo program,” says Robert W. Poole, who is the director of transportation policy at Reason Foundation, which publishes Reason and Reason TV. He says that NASA tends to stick to old ways of doing things, isn’t particularly interested in cost savings, and its decision making is overly driven by politics.

The hardware that powered Artemis I is known as the SLS—the Space Launch System—and was developed in partnership with Boeing. Critics have another name for it.

“The Senate Launch System, because it was concocted by the Senate as a way to rescue Constellation, give it a new name,” says Poole.