One could only imagine what could have actually happened when constellation wasn't cancelled, but one thing is sure: With constellation never cancelled, there will be no Artemis and Commercial Crew
Because Constellation planning would have ended NASA flights to the ISS after 2015, perhaps commercial crew would have been worked into keeping ISS operating, much as it does now.
It wasn’t exactly cancelled, both of the rockets had very serious engineering concerns. Most importantly; ares 5 was supposed to use ablatively cooled RS-68s from the delta IV in a cluster, but it turned out that the heat would be too much, so they has to use regeneratively cooled engines I.e. the shuttle ones. The cumulative redesigns resulted in the SLS we have today. While the actual implementation has been disastrous, the SLS as a design was more or less inevitable.
Well, this isn’t that timeline. This is hell. And in hell, we get the space shuttle retired early, forcing NASA to rely on Roscosmos. We also get a cancelled Constellation Program.
@@DavidWillisSLS A Question For You David:- How Much Money WAS Already Invested In The Constellation Program BEFORE It Was CANCELLED And What WAS The TOTAL Project Cancellation Costs? When You ADD Money Already Invested to Project Cancellation Costs THAT Is A HUGE Amount Of Money That Runs Into MILLIONS If Not BILLIONS Of DOLLARS ! ! ! ? ? ?🤔
@Just Some Guy I'd say we were in hell before, the space shuttle didn't retire early, it far outlived what it was originally planned for, essentially gutted NASA, and set us back potential decades. So badly that officials have stated we already would be on Mars if not for the shuttle.
This was top quality. Constellation is something that’s close to me since it’s what got me into spaceflight in the first place. I was too young to experience anything to do with Shuttle but in 2014 I saw the Orion test flight on Delta IV Heavy. Makes me sad that this program never materialized. It’s so much more cooler than Artemis.
@@CarbonMonoxxide i remember liking orion with circular panels better as a kid and pretending that the modern one didnt exist when i drew it and stuff :p
As a kid I remember looking at stuff about constellation on the NASA website and looking forward to seeing a moon mission. This video brought back memories of that. :)
I remember seeing an animation of how constellation would’ve went when I was 10. I wish it went ahead. We would’ve been to Mars by like 2035. Btw this is really fucking good quality for a small channel.
Fantastic Job Man! I have never found a video that has done this good of a job of showing the Constellation Program’s ambitions plans and potential. I learned so much. Great Work!
Willis gets a lot of criticism online for his steadfast support of SLS, but this was an informative and enjoyable review of the Constellation program. Well done!
A great compilation on this massive and ambitious program. Thanks, David, for all your research and editing to put this together. Anthony Young, author: The Saturn V F-1 Engine - Powering Apollo into History (Springer, 2009).
This is really top notch content we needed someone like you to teach us about NASA programs and not only spacex blue origin ula ect. I think your channel will grow big keep it up!
Great video David! I see you found some actually decent music. I really enjoyed the 3D animations in both this and the SLS video. Can’t wait to see what comes next!
So cool to find this channel! Great videos, these are actually so good and insane! The music is so vibey I love it, even 3 years later. This vid actually makes me long back for the Constellation program. Still think it would have gone better than Artemis. But we'll see. Hopefully Artemis only gets better with time and doesn't get cancelled.
Another great video. So crazy that the Ares 1 was so tall and skinny lol. take your time with the next one and just aim to make each one better than the one before. No need to rush things.
This was such a great video that educated me about the constellation project missions and objectives.This made me exited for a future that wasn’t. I hope the spacex starship would succeed and actually bring us to mars.
While starship will be useful if it works correctly, I think we need a Martian-style space transport station to ferry missions around the solar system.
@@GSF404 More than likely it will be used to build a mars transporter in orbit. Starship doesnt really make much sense for long distance missions like that especially without nuclear propulsion methods.
I’m still disappointed that Starship was selected for HLS though. I agree it is an important asset and will be essential to our future plans for exploration. But as a crewed moon lander? And Blue Moon isn’t much better. Bring back Altair!
God I remember watching this video when it was a few weeks old and I found your channel because you were responding to a comment someone made on the Apollo 13 movie clip the (Launch scene if I am correct) and been watching and rewatching all of your videos and some of your primal earth channel though dinosaurs are isn’t really something I am interested in
@brysonheslop4852 im actually in the process of working on a NEW video all about New Glenn which you might enjoy! But you’re right I have been focusing a lot more on the dinosaur stuff, mainly on Epoch Now. It’s a lot easier of a format to work with because there’s a whole team of people behind it, whereas here I have to make every video myself, BUT rest-assured I still have content planned for this channel that’s coming very soon!
@@DavidWillisSLSI have never felt so honour to have a channel like yours respond to me wow thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment and write such a long response thank you again
Good video! Although I have to say that it was really more on "the Constellation program itself" rather than "The Cancellation of Constellation". One final question: what about the Ares IV? Seems interesting as it was basically the concept of SLS Block I.
i came up with the title before the video, so thats the reason for the discrepancy lol. and Ares IV was never really anything of note, more of an idea, and not even a fleshed out idea at that tbh.
We got the sls block 2. i doubt besides starliner and dragon making the LEO and gateway trips there is much different than the insane inefficiency of sending a starship to land 3 people. So a different lander will replace the starship, spacex can only bleed money for so long. but it is sad that until starliner launches, space X has a stranglehold on our ability to get into orbit.
Just a little tip: there’s background noise in your audio so it’s noticeable when an audio track ends, to mitigate this just fade out the audio at the end of the track
16:15 What would history have been like if we landed on the moon in 2020 I suspect the astronauts would have to isolate on return not because of possible moon bugs like 1969 but because of covid.
So the Altair, with the cryogenic fuel in it, would be parked up there in LEO, waiting for the Orion to show up. Surely there was a time limit for this before too much fuel boiled away. What was the official answer to this obvious question? Surely there was one, and boy would I like to know.
There was supposed to be a "loiter ring" attached to the cryostage - essentially a bunch of solar panels and cryocoolers wrapped around the engine section, which would be jettisoned before TLI
I mean, u are right, constellation program was the best NASA engeeniers could have imagine, but, due to the contractors, and partially due to the specs requiered it was simply so much expensive, maybe id they have gone in to a 2 stages medium lift querosene propulsión vehicule, maybe today we could have an Ares 1, and then, the awesome Ares 5 that enormous project should have never be founded or even propose until Ares 1 crewed maiden flight. Let' s hope on the elon and jeff way cause it seems like NASA can no compete with the SLS, even Europa Clipper must lift off in the Falcon Heavy or New Glenn, if ready, because vibrations on the SLS
Constellation was the fantasy of then then-current NASA administrator. The solid rocket powered booster was far too weak for the mission and caused the redesign of Orion until it had been reduced from six crew to four, and the amount of water per astronaut had been reduced to a PINT (!) a day. Despite the "potential", it was a poor design all round. SLS may be crazy expensive, but it's better designed by far!
VERY SAD THAT CONSTELLATION PROGRAM WAS CANCELLED ! ! ! WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AND YOU CAN ALWAYS RELY ON GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY AND POLITICS TO FUCK THINGS UP ! ! ! HOPEFULLY THE SPACE POLICY IS NOW CORRECT THIS TIME AROUND BUT WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT WHY COULDN'T THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE SPACE POLICY GET IT RIGHT FIRST TIME AROUND ? ? ? 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ! ! ! ? ? ? VERY SAD THAT THE CONSTELLATION (MORELIKE THE CONSTERNATION PROGRAM ! ! !) PROGRAM WAS CANCELLED BY INCOMPETENT POLITICIANS AND BEAN COUNTERS ! ! ! THAT'S BEAUROCRACY FOR YOU ! ! !😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Yes. Whenever people ask why it’s taken so long to return to the moon and infer it was faked, I point them in the direction of STS, X-30, X-33, lack of sufficient funding, and most importantly: Constellation.
Great general outline of Constellation. However, the longer Constellation lingered, the more and more unrealistic it seemed. The foundation for its start was a study done of what NASA should do in the wake of the Columbia disaster, which was to return to the moon and head to Mars. The resulting program was Constellation. There were criticisms at the beginning that instead of taking advantge of bold new technologies as was suggested in the Bush exploration report, that Constellation was just a big relplay of Apollo, and was not really a fundamental step forward in technology, but just something to delay an eventual Mars mission. By the time metal was being cut for it, its budget required that the ISS be de-orbited as NASA could not afford to keep it going and fund Constellation, and the Altair lander would have required an unrealistically large increase in NASA's budget. Also, there were some severe engineering reports, including one from the Air Force stating that the crew could not survive a first-stage explosion due to the rate of expansion of its fireball being able to overtake the escape system rocket. This was significant because a major part of the rationale in killing the shuttle was that there was no way for the crew to escape a launch problem, as had doomed the Challenger crew. Even the case for returning to the moon was not stated, and it did not have broad support from the public or even within NASA, as it would have been so expensive that NASA would only be able to do an underfunded Constellation and little else. Artemis has gained more support because it does have the stated goal of finding and making use of the moon's resources, and it makes use of commercially provided components, and apparently it requires much smaller increases in NASA's budget to pull it off than did Constellation. Politically, it gains some support by its use of the in-progress SLS and Orion, and in general Artemis is open ended and can evolve to take advantage of what we find on the moon and commercially driven technology, instead of just committing to a prohibitively expensive lunar delivery system with no clear purpose. It should be stated though, that thanks to Constellation, the LCROSS mission (that verified lunar water at the south pole) and the LRO that accompanied it, did fly on time as the first Constellation elements, and have contributed a lot to illustrate the importance of the moon to exploration. www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html phys.org/news/2009-07-air-ares-crew-couldnt-survive.html
Two absolute banger vids in a row. Great content!
Eh we got the SLS
One could only imagine what could have actually happened when constellation wasn't cancelled, but one thing is sure:
With constellation never cancelled, there will be no Artemis and Commercial Crew
Artemis its okay but fucking just for comcrew the not-cancelation of constellation would have been devastating
Because Constellation planning would have ended NASA flights to the ISS after 2015, perhaps commercial crew would have been worked into keeping ISS operating, much as it does now.
It wasn’t exactly cancelled, both of the rockets had very serious engineering concerns. Most importantly; ares 5 was supposed to use ablatively cooled RS-68s from the delta IV in a cluster, but it turned out that the heat would be too much, so they has to use regeneratively cooled engines I.e. the shuttle ones. The cumulative redesigns resulted in the SLS we have today. While the actual implementation has been disastrous, the SLS as a design was more or less inevitable.
Maybe spaceX could have gone bankrupt without commerical crew
Ares V was an absolute unit, wish we got that timeline
it would certainly have been a sight to see!
@@DavidWillisSLS SLS is still lit tho, just wish it had the original paint scheme 😅
Well, this isn’t that timeline. This is hell. And in hell, we get the space shuttle retired early, forcing NASA to rely on Roscosmos. We also get a cancelled Constellation Program.
@@DavidWillisSLS A Question For You David:- How Much Money WAS Already Invested In The Constellation Program BEFORE It Was CANCELLED And What WAS The TOTAL Project Cancellation Costs? When You ADD Money Already Invested to Project Cancellation Costs THAT Is A HUGE Amount Of Money That Runs Into MILLIONS If Not BILLIONS Of DOLLARS ! ! ! ? ? ?🤔
@Just Some Guy I'd say we were in hell before, the space shuttle didn't retire early, it far outlived what it was originally planned for, essentially gutted NASA, and set us back potential decades. So badly that officials have stated we already would be on Mars if not for the shuttle.
God that lifting body aeroshell for the Mars mission concept looks so damn cool.
This was top quality. Constellation is something that’s close to me since it’s what got me into spaceflight in the first place. I was too young to experience anything to do with Shuttle but in 2014 I saw the Orion test flight on Delta IV Heavy. Makes me sad that this program never materialized. It’s so much more cooler than Artemis.
Same here, brother. Grew up watching the animations of the program.
@@CarbonMonoxxide i remember liking orion with circular panels better as a kid and pretending that the modern one didnt exist when i drew it and stuff :p
@@casualology. I was confused with the two different designs as a kid but I also preferred the circular panels.
@@CarbonMonoxxide based
The Orion Capsule actually has been kept. The rest of the program was scrapped.
As a kid I remember looking at stuff about constellation on the NASA website and looking forward to seeing a moon mission. This video brought back memories of that. :)
You literally have the best voice for this kind of thing. Such an impressive video.
thanks man!
I remember seeing an animation of how constellation would’ve went when I was 10. I wish it went ahead. We would’ve been to Mars by like 2035. Btw this is really fucking good quality for a small channel.
Fantastic Job Man! I have never found a video that has done this good of a job of showing the Constellation Program’s ambitions plans and potential. I learned so much. Great Work!
thank you! constellation wouldve been such an awesome program. sad we'll never get to see it.
@@DavidWillisSLS agreed
So you're a space commentary TH-camr now and not just a KSP youtuber?
ksp was never really working out for me. but this? now this is a lot of fun!
WHY DOES THE ARIES 1 LOOK SO DAM GOOD
This is awesome!
thank you!
Absolutely delightful video!!! I never knew the Constellation program was so interesting!!
Willis gets a lot of criticism online for his steadfast support of SLS, but this was an informative and enjoyable review of the Constellation program. Well done!
Newfound appreciation for Constellation! Really good video, gutted it never occurred!
A great compilation on this massive and ambitious program. Thanks, David, for all your research and editing to put this together. Anthony Young, author: The Saturn V F-1 Engine - Powering Apollo into History (Springer, 2009).
This is really top notch content we needed someone like you to teach us about NASA programs and not only spacex blue origin ula ect. I think your channel will grow big keep it up!
Great video David! I see you found some actually decent music. I really enjoyed the 3D animations in both this and the SLS video. Can’t wait to see what comes next!
So cool to find this channel! Great videos, these are actually so good and insane! The music is so vibey I love it, even 3 years later. This vid actually makes me long back for the Constellation program. Still think it would have gone better than Artemis. But we'll see. Hopefully Artemis only gets better with time and doesn't get cancelled.
By the way, what is the song from ~6 to ~9 minutes? It's so good.
This must be one of the best Videos on the platform - good job!
Thank you! I appreciate that!
1:24 bro really called it “Apollo on steroids”
That’s because it is
Love it! #SLSGang at it again!!
thank you!
When a kerbal engineer plays nasa space program
Such a treat to see another one of your videos in my feed!!! I love it!
Worked/working on all those projects and we called Orion, RE-POLLO.
Another great video! That whole plan for Mars for straight out insane.
Amazing and detailed video covering the overview of this almost forgotten program!
thank you!
I'm glad to know you enjoy making these because i enjoy watching them. You could talk about the rest of NASA's programs next, Shuttle and Apollo
I was 5 when I watched the constellation animations. I can’t lie I really thought we’d get there by now 😢
Another great video. So crazy that the Ares 1 was so tall and skinny lol. take your time with the next one and just aim to make each one better than the one before. No need to rush things.
@Dawid Willis Can You please give me the link to the music which starts somewhere between here: 4:55 or before that?
th-cam.com/video/dsdYAMcNcwI/w-d-xo.html
Thank you very much! I was looking for that music, and I couldn't find it!
This was such a great video that educated me about the constellation project missions and objectives.This made me exited for a future that wasn’t. I hope the spacex starship would succeed and actually bring us to mars.
My guy is extemely underrated. Amazing vid btw!
I still have to watch the whole video but let me tell you, THIS IS AWESOME MAN, GREAT JOB!
thank you!
Amazing Video! Love your voice and the well researched informations.
Also you have some amazing backround music dude
thank you!!
Wow! This is such a great and informative video. Excellent work!
Thank you!
This is very good! Keep it up mate
While starship will be useful if it works correctly, I think we need a Martian-style space transport station to ferry missions around the solar system.
100% Starship is amazing but it's not going to cut it IMO for Mars missions.
@@GSF404 More than likely it will be used to build a mars transporter in orbit. Starship doesnt really make much sense for long distance missions like that especially without nuclear propulsion methods.
@@nuckerball1259 Correct, it's not optimised for such a mission. 👍
@@GSF404 Yeah, i see starship as a workhorse for building things in low earth orbit. It does offer some extended range with in orbit refueling though
I’m still disappointed that Starship was selected for HLS though. I agree it is an important asset and will be essential to our future plans for exploration. But as a crewed moon lander? And Blue Moon isn’t much better. Bring back Altair!
Just watched this video, thinking the guy sounded familiar... After looking at the channel, I understood why. Haha. Great content!
containment of mission ares v 1 : used for crew transport ares heavy lifter : cargo aka moon lander element
Given the state of things now… wish we had gone this way….
Really well done man
A david vid is always an epic vid
:D
Ay man you're really good at this kinda stuff. Much better than I'd do lol
J-2X my beloved
You have a great documentary narrator voice.
thank you!
Finally somebody is talking about this
God I remember watching this video when it was a few weeks old and I found your channel because you were responding to a comment someone made on the Apollo 13 movie clip the (Launch scene if I am correct) and been watching and rewatching all of your videos and some of your primal earth channel though dinosaurs are isn’t really something I am interested in
@brysonheslop4852 im actually in the process of working on a NEW video all about New Glenn which you might enjoy! But you’re right I have been focusing a lot more on the dinosaur stuff, mainly on Epoch Now. It’s a lot easier of a format to work with because there’s a whole team of people behind it, whereas here I have to make every video myself, BUT rest-assured I still have content planned for this channel that’s coming very soon!
@@DavidWillisSLSI have never felt so honour to have a channel like yours respond to me wow thank you for taking the time to respond to my comment and write such a long response thank you again
That was so awesome! Thank you I learnt a ton. Keep up the awesome work
thank you! already looking forward to working on the next one!
I can't even imagine the alternate universe were we have the Ares 1 "Stick" instead of the Falcon 9 Crew Dragon
instead of Ares 5 being the most powerful rocket, Spacex's starship will take the mantle!
Whats the song at 9:42?
wow the constellation project was so inspirational! Pretty disappointing to have it canceled, hopefully, artemins happens.
It should be cancelled because it would be relying old technologies of Apollo and Space Shuttles. And repeat of Apollo style moon landing is very bad.
Ares V became SLS
No it didn’t
Anyone have a link for the ''mood'' music used in this video cause i cant find it anywhere :( (starts at 4:40)
I kinda hoped that after all this high stuff, we will get ares-1X launch with jurassic park theme on melodica
This is very good!!!!
Good video! Although I have to say that it was really more on "the Constellation program itself" rather than "The Cancellation of Constellation". One final question: what about the Ares IV? Seems interesting as it was basically the concept of SLS Block I.
i came up with the title before the video, so thats the reason for the discrepancy lol. and Ares IV was never really anything of note, more of an idea, and not even a fleshed out idea at that tbh.
We got the sls block 2. i doubt besides starliner and dragon making the LEO and gateway trips there is much different than the insane inefficiency of sending a starship to land 3 people. So a different lander will replace the starship, spacex can only bleed money for so long. but it is sad that until starliner launches, space X has a stranglehold on our ability to get into orbit.
David. Fucking. Willis. Lets gooooooooooooo
:D
Great video! Subscribed!
0:35 Epic aerospace moment
Now I wonder if the Russian space agency ever came up with plans similar to this…..
The Russian agency has all kinds of weird and wacky plans. They just never get very far except in really rare cases like Buran Energia
Imagine it worked out
THIS IS EPIC VIDEO
Good video!
WOW that would have been an EXPEN$IVE program had it gone through/survived to see the light of launch (on 39B..?) Very very cool video though!
The sad part is that the j2x was never had a chance not even on sls
Just a little tip: there’s background noise in your audio so it’s noticeable when an audio track ends, to mitigate this just fade out the audio at the end of the track
Yeah I noticed that. It’s impossible to fix unfortunately. Looking into getting a mic tho
great video david!
thank you!
fantastic content i love constellation
Honestly, too bad that it got cancelled. Humanity lost a great program 🥺
Constellation Project used old technologies of Apollo and Space Shuttles and a 21st replay of the Apollo style moon landing is very meaningless!
Great vid, shame the whole thing went so heavily over budget in the end.
Also, it seems FFairing has 7 youtube accounts (currently)
16:15 What would history have been like if we landed on the moon in 2020 I suspect the astronauts would have to isolate on return not because of possible moon bugs like 1969 but because of covid.
The more i look at the Ares-1 the better it looks
i am your 500th subscriber
Really cool video
im sad now
I wish this wasn’t canceled
Damn david this video was soooo good
But where was the starship cameo
i had to remove it unfortunately.
@@DavidWillisSLS Noooooooooooo
So the Altair, with the cryogenic fuel in it, would be parked up there in LEO, waiting for the Orion to show up. Surely there was a time limit for this before too much fuel boiled away. What was the official answer to this obvious question? Surely there was one, and boy would I like to know.
There was supposed to be a "loiter ring" attached to the cryostage - essentially a bunch of solar panels and cryocoolers wrapped around the engine section, which would be jettisoned before TLI
Constellation didn't need cancellation; just pragmatic alteration.
Constellation Project used old technologies of Apollo and Space Shuttles and a 21st replay of the Apollo style moon landing is very meaningless!
Right and Senate Launch System isn't?@@powerfulstrong5673
Constellation would have been so cool, but if it weren't canceled we wouldn't have SpaceX and rockets that land themselves
Space shuttle is a rocket that could land itself too ;)
Ares-5 specifications were significantly superior to SLS Block-2 Cargo and had more payload capability ! ! ! 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
Very enjoyable video
Amazing
Thanks!!
Fantastic vid!
thank you!
I mean, u are right, constellation program was the best NASA engeeniers could have imagine, but, due to the contractors, and partially due to the specs requiered it was simply so much expensive, maybe id they have gone in to a 2 stages medium lift querosene propulsión vehicule, maybe today we could have an Ares 1, and then, the awesome Ares 5 that enormous project should have never be founded or even propose until Ares 1 crewed maiden flight.
Let' s hope on the elon and jeff way cause it seems like NASA can no compete with the SLS, even Europa Clipper must lift off in the Falcon Heavy or New Glenn, if ready, because vibrations on the SLS
Constellation Project used old technologies of Apollo and Space Shuttles and a 21st replay of the Apollo style moon landing is very meaningless!
Great job!
Almost 10k likes!!
Constellation was the fantasy of then then-current NASA administrator. The solid rocket powered booster was far too weak for the mission and caused the redesign of Orion until it had been reduced from six crew to four, and the amount of water per astronaut had been reduced to a PINT (!) a day. Despite the "potential", it was a poor design all round. SLS may be crazy expensive, but it's better designed by far!
VERY SAD THAT CONSTELLATION PROGRAM WAS CANCELLED ! ! ! WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN AND YOU CAN ALWAYS RELY ON GOVERNMENT BUREAUCRACY AND POLITICS TO FUCK THINGS UP ! ! ! HOPEFULLY THE SPACE POLICY IS NOW CORRECT THIS TIME AROUND BUT WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT WHY COULDN'T THE PEOPLE THAT MAKE SPACE POLICY GET IT RIGHT FIRST TIME AROUND ? ? ? 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍
well at least the Orion survived, right?
Indeed it did!
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN ! ! ! ? ? ? VERY SAD THAT THE CONSTELLATION (MORELIKE THE CONSTERNATION PROGRAM ! ! !) PROGRAM WAS CANCELLED BY INCOMPETENT POLITICIANS AND BEAN COUNTERS ! ! ! THAT'S BEAUROCRACY FOR YOU ! ! !😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
Yes. Whenever people ask why it’s taken so long to return to the moon and infer it was faked, I point them in the direction of STS, X-30, X-33, lack of sufficient funding, and most importantly: Constellation.
I like
What about cancelation of venture star developed in the Clinton administration by Bush at the beginning of his first mandate?
I do remember how the Clinton Admin almost canceled the Astronaut program.
Sls but have ares 1 instead of srbs
Yessssss!!!
Great general outline of Constellation. However, the longer Constellation lingered, the more and more unrealistic it seemed.
The foundation for its start was a study done of what NASA should do in the wake of the Columbia disaster, which was to return to the moon and head to Mars. The resulting program was Constellation. There were criticisms at the beginning that instead of taking advantge of bold new technologies as was suggested in the Bush exploration report, that Constellation was just a big relplay of Apollo, and was not really a fundamental step forward in technology, but just something to delay an eventual Mars mission.
By the time metal was being cut for it, its budget required that the ISS be de-orbited as NASA could not afford to keep it going and fund Constellation, and the Altair lander would have required an unrealistically large increase in NASA's budget. Also, there were some severe engineering reports, including one from the Air Force stating that the crew could not survive a first-stage explosion due to the rate of expansion of its fireball being able to overtake the escape system rocket. This was significant because a major part of the rationale in killing the shuttle was that there was no way for the crew to escape a launch problem, as had doomed the Challenger crew.
Even the case for returning to the moon was not stated, and it did not have broad support from the public or even within NASA, as it would have been so expensive that NASA would only be able to do an underfunded Constellation and little else.
Artemis has gained more support because it does have the stated goal of finding and making use of the moon's resources, and it makes use of commercially provided components, and apparently it requires much smaller increases in NASA's budget to pull it off than did Constellation. Politically, it gains some support by its use of the in-progress SLS and Orion, and in general Artemis is open ended and can evolve to take advantage of what we find on the moon and commercially driven technology, instead of just committing to a prohibitively expensive lunar delivery system with no clear purpose. It should be stated though, that thanks to Constellation, the LCROSS mission (that verified lunar water at the south pole) and the LRO that accompanied it, did fly on time as the first Constellation elements, and have contributed a lot to illustrate the importance of the moon to exploration.
www.nasa.gov/missions/solarsystem/bush_vision.html
phys.org/news/2009-07-air-ares-crew-couldnt-survive.html
great vid
Thank you!