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This isn't well understood by the public, but there was immense pressure on NASA to bring the cost down in the shuttle program.  In order to do this, they needed to launch more times per year.  The more times they launched, the less per launch the costs would be.  You have so many fixed costs, so the incremental costs were not nearly as much.  Plus, the thought was that you could refine things as you go, make things faster.  

FF to 1986 and Challenger.  We don't need to rehash the details, but 7 astronauts lost, vehicle lost.  Major black eye on the Space Program.  

So we built ISS, and I’ve seen reports that it could not have been done without the shuttle. 

ISS was a success in many ways. It gave Russian space program something to do ( selling ICBM Tech to not friendly nations ) , gave US Aerospace a jobs program, and it gave the shuttle something to do. We learned some in space construction methods, advanced our technology. But in my opinion , we could have done way more. 

EssentiallyCongress  only became interested in the space program as a jobs program. We flew it from 1981-2011, and things got pretty stale. 

ISS is still there, but nobody really cares about it. It’s boring. Science returns are somewhat minimal. 

In 1979 when Skylab was crashing to Earth my friend and I put on hardhats and binoculars and made a sign proclaiming us the Skylab Patrol and rode it all over my small home town in my old Nissan. They put us on the front page of our local newspaper. 

So, this brings us to Artemis. 

Obama actually cancelled Constellation and the predecessors to Artemis. 

Congress and the Senate invented SLS as a compromise. It was supposed to use Space Shuttle tech to build a rival to the Saturn V rocket. 

SLS is often referred to as the Senate Launch System. It uses 4 Space Shuttle Main Engines, or SSME. Now known as RS-25 engines.  

No matter what you think about the success or failure of the shuttle program, SSME  was a tremendous technological achievement. 

The problem is they were designed to be reusable. So the cost of each engine wasn’t really that big of a concern. Reusability was a priority. 

SLS is a single use rocket. It drops the first stage off in the ocean after each use. Now , the government has a decent supply of RS-25 engines left over from the shuttle program. There were three orbiters left. Endeavor, Atlantis, and Discovery. 3 engines each, so 9 flight proven engines, plus a stock of a few dozen more from previous flown and unflown missions. About 16-20 total. Enough for 4-5 flights of SLS. 

This brings us to Artemis II.  Some of you may be wondering why we're sending humans around the moon, like we did with Apollo 8 and 10 (and 13 by accident). 

BTW, as an aside, Apollo 8 was a very bold move at the time.  The CIA and NASA got wind that the Soviets were going to beat us to the moon.  The N1 was pretty much equivalent, if not slightly stronger, than the Saturn V.  This was the first human mission for Apollo/Saturn V full stack.  They sent it all the way to the moon and back, just to beat the Russians. 

Back to my point.  SLS, even though it's advertised as "the most powerful rocket ever flown" is not as capable as the Saturn V because the 2nd stage, known as the ICPS or Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage, is underpowered, and the capsule, known as Orion, is overweight compared to the Apollo CSM. 

For comparison, Saturn V could hurl 48-50 tons to TLI (Trans Lunar Injection).  Artemis/SLS:  measley 26 tons to TLI.  So roughly half the capability.  Some of this is due to the fact that they tried to "stage" in the SLS rocket, with later versions planned for more capability, and some if it just simply dumb decisions early in the project.  There is a Block 2 version (no hardware ready) that will be comparable to SV, and a Block 1B that is like .75 Saturn V. 

The comparison from Saturn V to SLS and the lack of performance doesn't just end with the rocket.  The Apollo CSM had a very large engine with a thrust of about 91 kN.  Some of this was not needed because decisions were made early in the program that were not necessarily warranted.  They didn't have all the components figured out, so they overbuilt.  Orion has a SM (service module) thrust of a meager 25 kN. So basically 1/4 the power of Apollo.  Stupid.  

Now, to be fair, the Apollo CM (command module) was much smaller than Artemis.  It only held a crew of 3, and it did not have nearly the shielding and other life support that Artemis will have.  The main reason for this is that Orion was designed more for a general mission, Apollo was meant for Moon only. 

BTW, we gave the SM for Orion to the Europeans. They built and designed it.  I have no idea why?  

I've got more to write, but I want to hear from others.  I know a lot of people don't give two rips about the program, or maybe only a passing interest.  

The last I had read is that NASA is planning a mission with Artemis to land men on the moon. However, the plan is/was to use Elon Musk's Starship to rondevue with Orion in the Moons orbit, tranfer the landing party to the Starship and use Starship to actually land on the moon.

Question or Gigem: Am I correct about this or do you have any information regarding this?