Astronomical deep-space exploration is, for now, uncontroversial when limited to inside the asteroid belt and, compared to other projects, the costs are not high—it's considered a minor matter.
What Lin Ju is more concerned about is landing on the Moon, as satellite images taken in the early morning captured an orange behemoth appearing at Calavilar Air Base.
NACA hasn't given up; at least they believe they can still pull ahead in the end.
The mission objective of Artemis II is now quite clear. Even if their mission timeline was moved forward, the lander couldn't possibly be that far ahead of schedule. This indicates that NACA had contemplated advancing the Artemis II mission timeline long ago; they just had to move it up even further.
Lin Ju mentally gave these Yankees a nod of approval. In the original timeline, after the initial flight of Artemis I in 2022, Artemis II had not been launched by 2024. NACA really was giving it their all, pushing ahead at least seven years early.
