It's no real secret that I'm a long-time SLS critic, but watching its fans react with joy after Artemis I launched was so much more pleasant than listening to the haters. I felt the same way when Falcon Heavy went up, but I was a fan of that rocket all along.
I suspect I'll feel the same way about Neutron, Vulcan, Starship, Ariane 6—I have no reason to suspect otherwise. Even a mess like the Shuttle is still more fun to watch than complain about. There's important lessons in what went wrong in creating an expendable shuttle-derived heavy-lift launch vehicle, but the point is to learn that lesson and apply it as we push forward into the universe. I want to see us succeed, and even an expensive success if preferable to failure.
There's a shallower aspect, of course. For all my posturing, I'm an insufferable optimist at heart. I want things to work, I want things to go right, and I expect it. I complain because I know it can be better, I can see it, the path's right there, why are we taking it? I'm always talking about what could go wrong because avoiding it is easy. And it's so very much more satisfying when things go right.
The first SLS is gone; the boosters at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, the core at the bottom of the Indian, and the upper stage out in solar orbit, never to return. Artemis is just beginning. How big a role the SLS will end up playing remains to be seen. Even as an engineer working on human deep space exploration, my influence on those high-level procurement policy decisions is miniscule. For now, why not focus on doing the best job I can do, and enjoy the success of so many other engineers who are working hard towards the same basic vision of humans living on other worlds?
We can debate the specifics of strategy at length. Let's not mistake disagreements in how for differences in what. I'm happy to discuss how we could be doing better, but I'd rather that conversation be amiable than acrimonious. We have a long way to go on the path to the planets. Joy and celebration will do more than internecine hatreds to get us there.
