The Full Moon was a glorious sight on Sunday, even if witnessed through the omnipresent rain-haze that produced a lunar halo. We gaze skyward in joy and awe, reminded of the sheer wonder of life and the universe around us.

The moon, however, is a dead rock. We enjoy its reflection of sunlight, not its dark side.

Yet this week we will all be expected to enthuse to, if not exalt, the “return of mankind” to Earth’s satellite. Journalists will exaggerate the adventure in the competition to be the greatest cheerleader for  the launch the Artemis II rocket carrying astronauts to have a spin round the rock.

School projects this week will entice our children to colour-in the NASA logo and parents to buy the overpriced t-shirt made in Chinese sweatshops to prove allegiance to western superiority. 

The Artemis project has officially cost at least $93billion to get to this point. But the true cost is far higher. This is the latest propaganda exercise in the technological Cold War, the United States in competition with China and India to prove superiority and dominance in Space as well as on Earth. It is a military exercise, and our children should be advised of this.

The Artemis missions are promoted as part of NASA’s long-term plans to build a space station on the moon called “Lunar Gateway” run by nuclear power plants to be launched from Earth (what could possibly go wrong), where astronauts will live and work and, they suggest, prepare for missions to Mars from where life will be cut short by such high doses of radiation that the gallant heroes will never return. 

It is a science fiction, a distraction from all the challenges of our world. The moon and the planets are hostile to human life, and the projected US lunar base is a hostile statement of imperialist domination, part of the Space Wars already active around our globe. 

Last time around we exposed the waste of human focus, time and energy, chanting Gil Scott-Heron’s brilliant poem, “Whitey on the Moon”. He documented the poverty and medical debt, untreated ill-health, war and environmental destruction in 1970, emphasising the stark dislocation between the fit White men bouncing on the moon’s surface, the oppression and destitution of millions of Black people across the US, and the billions in absolute poverty across the Global South.

Today we’re in an even worse state. No wonder there’s efforts to force us to look away. 

More than 2,000,000,000 people have no  access to safe drinking water, sanitation, and handwashing – a basic human need. Get that sorted! There are 300 million people living inside the 130 active military wars, 120million war refugees, genocide in Gaza and Sudan. Stop that! 

With all the high-tech SpaceX machismo fronted by the fascist billionaire, Elon Musk, how comes 28million people in the USA live without income or state support? And ICE paramilitaries murdering civilians on the streets of America? Really? 

Look Up! Look Away! Enjoy childlike space fantasies instead!

They’ll tell you that humanity has benefited enormously from the science of space exploration. Which particular part of humanity are they referring to, exactly? The mobile phones that they’re now seeking to ban for children under 16? The “Teflon” frying pans, a by-product of the heat-covers to allow space capsules to return to earth safely, now found to contain toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl “forever” chemicals polluting all life on earth including every human brain? Is that progress?

Worst of all, they’re using the Artemis mission to spread complacency about the climate crisis. Look how blue the Earth appears from the moon! Everything’s fine! NO ITS NOT! Have you seen the extreme weather events across the USA, hardly reported amidst the gloss of Artemis. The floods and waterlogged pitches here, and the fires raging in Africa, Indonesia and South America are because of global heating caused by burning fossil fuels. The Gulf Stream is weakening. Don’t look away, invest in our common future not some Hollywood-inspired sci-if spectacle!

The anti-Vietnam War, pro-human rights protests and international workers’ strikes of the early seventies forced government to return to the issues of home. The space programme was stopped because it was a complete waste of finite resources. It still is.