Colin Sheridan: We can imagine life on the Moon, but not dignity on Earth

As Nasa plans humanity’s return to the Moon, our tolerance for civilian slaughter exposes a disturbing ethical divide

Artemis II, we are told by Nasa, is priced, planned and pencilled in for 2026: four astronauts, looping the Moon, humanity once more flirting with the poetry of space and silence and distance. File picture

At the tail end of the year, when the news thins like air at altitude and the conscience thickens like yesterday’s soup, certain stories sit beside one another like strangers on a late bus, refusing to make eye contact yet impossible to ignore. One of them arrives dressed in the language of wonder.

Artemis II, we are told by Nasa, is priced, planned and pencilled in for 2026: four astronauts, looping the Moon, humanity once more flirting with the poetry of space and silence and distance.