By all rights, this should be something I am deeply passionate about. I’ve been in tech/engineering my entire adult life and was obsessed with NASA as a kid. I even live on the east coast of Florida and can sometimes see the launches/landings over the ocean. But I just… don’t care at all. I’m not suffering from depression or any other malaise, and generally things are fine. But I haven’t clicked on a single link or looked at a single image. I know this has not been the case for many, many people, so I’m wondering what might be different about this launch (or really the whole program in general), and curious if anyone else has found themselves feeling the same.
While I share some, if not most, of your disinterest, it’s probably worth pointing out that while “we” had a Saturn V rocket system and Apollo space program that did, at least superficially the same as Artemis so far, we could not actually repeat a Saturn V launch today, as-in we lost many of those skills and associated experience.
In many ways, Artemis is essentially getting back to where we left off in 1973 with the intention of eclipsing it, but the ongoing NASA budget cuts being perpetrated by the current regime are in my opinion going to curtail the program before too long.
If I recall correctly, after Apollo 11, the TV audiences dwindled for the rest of the program, with a brief spike for Apollo 13, so perhaps there’s an aspect of that to consider.
For me the disappointment was triggered by the poor camera handling during launch, the view of backpacks, food and plushies surrounding CAPCOM at Mission Control, the broken toilet debacle and the heat shield obfuscation, all of which made this less leading edge science and more of a shitshow.
I hope the astronauts land safety in a couple of hours, but I won’t be watching for days like I did for the first Shuttle launch in 1981.