You mocked them, I’ll call you stupid for it. You claimed they reduced heat transfer rate, which is false. The answer is in the article you linked.

For Artemis II, it would return through Earth’s atmosphere at a steeper angle, spending fewer minutes in the environment where this outgassing occurred during Artemis I.

This change is a perfect example of engineering research. Artemis I was within the expected boundaries of the heat shield material. It performed worse than expected, so they adjusted its heat exposure rate based on the actual outcome. The guy in the article seems to not understand that this is a huge part of actual engineering.

I’m a mechanical engineer. The article is mostly fluff sucking off to the rich guy you quoted.