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SpaceInMyBrain t1_iypihxb wrote

The Hill makes an article out of an offhand remark, gets the crew capacity of Orion wrong, then misses that Gateway won't be used till probably Artemis 5. It's painful how little regular media knows about our space programs.

Anyway, M. Macron should contract directly with Axiom and SpaceX for a couple of missions for their astronauts and then contract with SpaceX for a Starship ride to the Moon. They won't beat Artemis 3 but they will beat Artemis 4. Macron spoke to Elon just a couple of days ago, I'm guessing he has his email.

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H-K_47 t1_iyqalr1 wrote

As epic it would be to see something like that happen, I don't think it's likely as France is an a Artemis signatory and SpaceX doesn't wanna show up their biggest partner and patron.

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SpaceInMyBrain t1_iyrllkq wrote

I still occasionally forget that text on the internet is taken at face value, I forgot to elaborate. Yes, this will never happen, I was trying to illustrate how much of a dead-end it is for France to rely on the Artemis program to get a meaningful number of their astronauts to the Moon.

>SpaceX doesn't wanna show up their biggest partner and patron.

Totally agree. It's expected that in late 2025 SpaceX will be ready to make the test landing of HLS, as contracted for with NASA. The Dear Moon Starship could also be ready. SpaceX could coordinate the missions and have Dear Moon transiting around the Moon at the same time HLS is landing and taking off. This will be at least a year before SLS/Orion is ready for Artemis 3 and would be a great demonstration of why NASA should turn all of Artemis over to SpaceX. But it's very likely Elon won't want to embarrass NASA, their partnership is valuable to him and his goals. (He's also well aware of how deeply Artemis is entwined with politics, of course.) I expect the flights will be made months apart - the potential to take over Artemis will be plain to see but it won't have the look of dunking on NASA. (Of course there's no guarantee Dear Moon will be ready, i.e. crew-rated by SpaceX, in 2025, but it's a real possibility.)

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Real_Affect39 t1_iyqc4xm wrote

In the article they weren’t saying 3 astronauts would ride in Orion, they were saying that ESA wants to send 3 astronauts total on the currently planned Artemis missions

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