What a strange article?
in the opening paragraphs you state this
“What does the Moon mean to Interstellar? you ask. Simple. It’s school.
It’s actual humanity-in-space school for space explorers. The Moon is humankind’s sandbox for space exploration. It’s where we can get space exploration wrong and do over. It’s where we can get space exploration right and go on.”
Getting to the moon is and was a giant undertaking that huge amounts of funding and resources and effort. It is not a school science project. It may be in some ways a stepping stone to future exploration but it seems like your diminishing the cost and effort involved with your analogy. Further anything as demanding as manned space exploration should not be fettered with humanities mi-optic obsession with skin color or gender or other differences that frankly in space when you are just trying to survive and accomplish the herculean task of say getting to mars, should not even be worried about.
Until we get to a point like in star trek where heading out to explore space is rather mundane task, lets leave it to the best suited and most qualified individuals whom ever they may be.
