I am old enough to remember the early days of space exploration, days that included John Glenn in orbit, the Mercury space program, followed by the Apollo missions, etc. In those early days, achievements in space commanded a great deal of attention, in part because it was essentially a battle of ideologies, capitalism against evil communism, an ongoing grudge match between the U.S and the Soviet Union. Who would emerge victorious, the world wondered.

But those days are long over. The U.S. emerged ‘victorious’, as if somehow its technological prowess atoned for its racism, its foreign wars, its naked imperialism. 

So what accounts for the current fascination with the Artemis 11 mission and its almost endless news coverage? 

There is, of course, the matter of spectacle, an always useful, time-tested way to capture the attention of the masses and divert them from the really important matters that plague all of us. Americans are especially prone to embracing such blandishments, always ready to put hand over heart in patriotic fervour. So what if they started a needless and senseless war? So what if so many of their fellow citizens live on the street, with no chance of better lives? So what if ICE’ murders fellow citizens? So what if their president is a dementia-ridden despot? Such matters pall in the face of going to the moon, eh?

But beyond that, it is striking that the news networks seem willing to carry the water for those who benefit the most from such ‘excursions’: the billionaires who walk amongst us. Consider the fact that the majority of television media are now part of large corporate conglomerates, and you have the perfect conditions for influencing and molding public opinion; thus we become conditioned to cheer on the prospect of a permanent moon base being established in the not-too-distant future. Somehow, that has become the imperative, as if establishing such a base would confer American lunar hegemony and ensure a bright future.

But a bright future for whom? From the perspective of the billionaires, the almost limitless profits to be made from such a feat, almost totally funded by taxpayer dollars, is undoubtedly occasioning all kinds of pavlovian salivation. And while the oligarchs amass even greater profits, the general public is left to hope for a few orts from the table, reminded yet again of their true place in the scheme of things. 

Democracy’s ill-health is a precondition of such predatory monetary achievement, and given that the U.S. has now devolved into a vicious autocracy, clearly the conditions are golden for new rounds of pillaging.