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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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