- Betting everything on a single huge project is risky. You wait for years for completion, and if some critical part of the project costs more/takes longer than expected (much like Artemis today) you risk achieving nothing at all.
- Small, cheap projects that don't bankrupt the agency if they fail, when they succeed, generate ongoing positive PR and scientific results. NASA famously promoted this concept after one or two expensive projects had problems (of course, not famously enough that I remember more details).
- Some of those smaller projects are critical, like climate monitoring. You can't just set aside those sorts of tasks for a literal moonshot.
- Smaller projects contribute towards the big ones: NASA has given SpaceX a fair bit of money over the years that is paying off with Starship and Artemis.
- Betting everything on a single huge project is risky. You wait for years for completion, and if some critical part of the project costs more/takes longer than expected (much like Artemis today) you risk achieving nothing at all.
- Small, cheap projects that don't bankrupt the agency if they fail, when they succeed, generate ongoing positive PR and scientific results. NASA famously promoted this concept after one or two expensive projects had problems (of course, not famously enough that I remember more details).
- Some of those smaller projects are critical, like climate monitoring. You can't just set aside those sorts of tasks for a literal moonshot.
- Smaller projects contribute towards the big ones: NASA has given SpaceX a fair bit of money over the years that is paying off with Starship and Artemis.