Max: Welcome to Landing the Moon. I'm Max, Blake is here with me, and okay, this week we have a date. Blake: June 9, NASA drops the Artemis III crew live at Johnson Space Center, four names, 11 a.m. Eastern time. Max: Right, and look, the names will get all the headlines, but the mission progress update buried in that same event, that's the thing we actually care about. Blake: Because Artemis III is not the moon landing anymore. It's a docking test in low... Low Earth orbit, Orion rendezvous with Starship HLS, Blue Origin, or maybe both, late 2027 target. Max: Which is wild when you remember this mission was supposed to put boots on the lunar South Pole. Blake: It was, and then it wasn't, and then the date slipped repeatedly. Max: It repeatedly. Blake: Plot twist, NASA confirmed the late 2027 target only after NASA Administrator Isaacman told the House Appropriations Committee Both SpaceX and Blue Origin said they could be ready. We will be pressing on that. Max: Oh, we will dig into that hard, because they said they'd be ready and they are ready are very different sentences. Blake: Very different. And here's where it gets good. There's also a non-proposal spacer replacing the ICPS on this flight. The European Service Module is doing all the orbital work, and NASA's own language about crew possibly entering a lander is doing a lot of heavy lifting. around what they don't know yet. Max: We've got crew selection politics, engineering decisions, lander readiness, the downstream stakes for Artemis IV and V, and we're closing with hard predictions before the June 9th announcement so we can be held accountable. Blake: Let's get into it. Max: Okay, so get this. June 9th, NASA is holding a live event at Johnson Space Center, 11 a.m. Eastern, streaming on NASA Plus and YouTube, and they're naming the four astronauts assigned to Artemis III. Blake: Four names on a stage. Big moment. Max: Big moment, absolutely. And I will watch those four names drop like I'm watching a front office build something real. But Blake, tell me you're not just here for the theater. Blake: Oh, I'm barely here for the names. According to NASA's own press release, this event isn't just a crew reveal. They're delivering a mission progress update at the same time. That's the part worth your attention. Max: Right, right, because the names are the spectacle, but the machinery structuring is what actually matters. Blake: Exactly. And look, this program has a history. Artemis slips dates. Artemis III was originally supposed to land astronauts on the Moon. Boom. Max: Mm-hmm. Blake: Full stop. That didn't happen. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman confirmed in February 2026 that the mission got restructured entirely. Now it stays in Earth orbit. So they took the moon landing off the board, moved it to Artemis IV, targeting 2028. Artemis III is now basically an Apollo IX analog. You go to low Earth orbit, you dock Orion with one or both of the commercial landers from SpaceX. From SpaceX and Blue Origin you stress test the hardware. Max: Which honestly, NASA's own description calls Blake: One Max: it wow. of the most complex missions they've ever undertaken for an Earth orbit mission, when you call a holding pattern hugely complex, that's a governance tell. Blake: It tells you the docking piece is genuinely hard. You've got two separately launched commercial vehicles, Starship HLS and Blue Moon Mark II, and Orion has to rendezvous with them in a f***. In a four hundred sixty three kilometer orbit. None of this is solved yet. Max: Quickly, and Artemis II only splashed down in the Pacific on April 10th, less than two months ago. The speed here isn't exhilaration, it's compression. Blake: Fast-ish. The Space.com report noted the early twenty twenty seven target already slipped to late twenty twenty seven because of lander development delays from both SpaceX and Blue Origin. Max: So we're watching a crew reveal for a late twenty twenty seven mission. And that nobody's fully locked down yet on hardware that's still being assembled. That's not just subtext, that's the actual text of this whole June 9th event. Blake: Welcome to Artemis. Max: Chuckling. And here's what I want to know, because crew selection is never random, it's a referendum. Who NASA puts in those four seats on a mission this unsettled tells you exactly what the agency is willing to bet on right now. So who's it going to be? So here's the thing about that crew list: read it like a policy document. What do you mean? Blake: Every seat NASA fills signals something. Risk tolerance, diplomatic priorities, bench depth-the names tell you what the agency actually values right now. Max: Fair, and the obvious starting point is the Artemis II backup crew. Andre Douglas, Jenni Gibbons-both have Orion-specific training. That's real institutional knowledge. Blake: Right, they're natural fits, but NASA has formally opened eligibility. Eligibility to the entire active astronaut corps, that 2020 Artemis team of 18 no longer a binding short list, according to SpaceNews. Max: So you could theoretically get somebody totally unexpected. Blake: You could, Max: Mm-hmm. Blake: but I'd argue the mission itself is the filter. This is a docking-focused flight. Rendezvous and docking, that's the whole job. Max: 100%. So you'd want someone who's actually commanded a docking. Jonny Kim, Anne McClain, Matthew Dominick. These are names that keep coming up because the operational experience maps directly onto the mission. Blake: Noting TalkOfTitusville had a good breakdown on this, docking experience commanders are logical pick when the central objective is rendezvous with two commercial landers. Max: And then there's the international seat question, which is where it gets messy. Blake: Oh, it's a mess. Here's the short version. ESA's contractual seat access was tied to great weight contributions. NASA killed Gateway on March twenty fourth. With no gateway, no contractual ESA seat, not on Artemis III anyway. Max: So ESA built service modules, contributed hardware, and now the seat they were trading for just evaporated? Blake: Basically, yeah. Aschbacher told SpaceNews he's bringing a revised partner plan to the ESA Council in June. They're renegotiating from scratch. Max: That's a rough spot for Europe diplomatically. Blake: It is. And here's my push on this. Does an international seat even make sense on a hardware test flight? Max: I'd say no. If the primary objective is validating docking systems, you want your most experienced docking crew, full stop. Diplomatic goodwill can wait for Artemis IV, where it actually matters. Matters. Someone walks on the Moon. Blake: See, I go back and forth. Max: Hmm. Blake: Canada earned its Artemis II seat through Canadarm contributions. Jenni Gibbons, with her Orion training, she might actually be the best of both worlds. Max: Okay, fair concession; but whoever they pick, they need to know exactly what they're flying into, and the mission profile itself has some genuinely wild engineering decisions baked in. Which is where this gets really interesting, because the hardware story might be stranger than the crew story. Blake: That's exactly where we're going next. So the crew politics are wild, but here's the engineering story underneath all of it, and this is where it gets good. Max: Right, because whoever flies needs to be ready for a mission profile that looks nothing like what Artemis III was supposed to be. Blake: Nothing. So NASA's official outline, published May 13th, describes Artemis III as a crewed rendezvous and docking test in low Earth orbit. Four crew, SLS carries Orion up, European Service Module circularizes the orbit. That's it for propulsion. Max: No lunar trajectory; no deep space. Closest analog is Apollo Nine—same idea, test the lander hardware in Earth orbit before you commit to the big one. Blake: Exactly—and the ICPS decision is the tell. NASA's not flying its last Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage—that's the upper stage that pushed Artemis One and Two toward the Moon—they're replacing it with what they're literally calling a "spacer." Max: A spacer like a structural place holder. Blake: Deadpan, fabricated at Marshall Space Flight Center right now—same dimensions, same mass, Max: Wow. Blake: no engine—it's a dummy upper stage. Max: And the reason is actually smart: they've got one ICPS left, and Artemis Four actually needs the energy to reach lunar orbit. Blake: You save the one irreplaceable part for the mission that matters. LEO doesn't need it, so don't burn it. Max: I get the logic. My concern is schedule. They're machining this thing now, and Artemis III is targeting late 2027. That's not a lot of margin. Blake: Fair. And then there's the heat shield story. According to SatNews, Artemis III will debut an upgraded heat shield block configuration specifically designed to address the ablation anomalies from Artemis I. Max: Where AFCOT gases built up, cracked, chunks came off. Not ideal on a crewed vehicle. Blake: Not ideal. So this flight validates the fix in a real re-entry environment. environment before Artemis IV faces actual lunar return speeds. Max: Okay, so, docking test, heat shield validation, those are concrete objectives; then there's the third one, which is murkier. Blake: Oh, here it is: NASA's own language from May thirteenth outline: "Astronauts could potentially enter at least one lander test article. Max: Could potentially. Blake: Two words that tell you everything about how ready those landers actually are right now. Now Max: Which is the question that takes us to the next conversation entirely—what can SpaceX and Blue Origin actually deliver by late 2027? Blake: So if that could potentially enter hanging in the air, let's talk about why it's hanging there. Both landers are behind schedule. Max: SpaceX is the more obvious case. Starship HLS can't go to the moon without on-orbit propellant transfer. That demo was supposed to happen by mid-2025, slipped to early to mid-2026. According to Spaceflight Now, the propellant transfer campaign started around March 2025 and completing over the summer. Summer. Neither happened. Blake: Right, right, right. And NASA's own Inspector General flagged it in their March 2026 report, SpaceX has not done in-space refueling, has not flown an uncrewed Starship HLS to the moon, two key milestones, both still pending. Max: So what are we actually testing in late 2027? Docking. Just docking. Blake: I mean, look, I'd argue that's not nothing. If Orion can't dock clean with a vehicle the size of Starship, you've got a bigger problem. A docking test has real engineering value. Max: Sure, but here's where I have a contract management problem. NASA's own language and the Wikipedia summary of their May 2026 statement means the mission is being written around whatever SpaceX and Blue Origin can actually show up with. That's the agency building a schedule around contractor deliverables. that haven't been demonstrated yet. Speaker 3: Oh, and Blue Origin's situation is honestly kind of wild. Blue Moon Mark II almost certainly can't arrive before the 2030s, so Blue Origin has been working on a crewed variant of the Mark I design, informally called Mark 1.5. Meanwhile, there's a full-scale Mark II cabin mock-up sitting at Johnson Space Center right now for astronaut training. Max: Wait, they're training on a mock-up for a vehicle that can't fly on this mission? Speaker 3: And that's the program. Blue Origin paused New Shepard flights entirely to push... to push resources toward the lander. To be fair, the Mark 1 uncrewed cargo variant did complete vacuum chamber tests at Johnson. That's a concrete milestone. Max: Hmm. I'm on both sides a little bit. The hardware progress is real, but NASA calling both vehicles pathfinders while simultaneously announcing the crew, that's framing papers over the fact that crew entry into a lander, which is the hardest part, is still a maybe. Speaker 3: And NASA Administrator Isaacman confirmed before the House Appropriations Committee in April of 2026 that delays from both providers pushed the target to late 2027, not mid. late. Max: So the schedule pressure is acknowledged at the highest level. That actually matters heading into Artemis 4 because Artemis 4 is the real landing. Everything Artemis 3 proves or doesn't feeds directly into whether that 2028 date holds at all. Speaker 3: And the ICPS they saved for Artemis 4? That's the one concrete sign they're protecting the landing mission's lift margin. They're betting hard on that 2028 window. Max: A single upper stage carrying the weight of fifty years of Apollo nostalgia. No pressure. Speaker 3: So with all that lander uncertainty still hanging, here's the thing that keeps me up at night. The crew named on June 9th isn't actually flying to the moon. Max: Right. They're flying the pre-qualification trial for the moon mission. Everything they do on Artemis III feeds directly into whether Artemis IV holds its early 2028 landing target. Speaker 3: And 2028 is the mission that actually matters. First humans on the lunar surface since Apollo 17. Max: Mm-hmm. Speaker 3: That's what's on the line. Max: So here's my question, Max. NASA's targeting early 2028 for Artemis IV and late 2028 for Artemis V. That's two lunar landings in one calendar year with almost zero schedule margin. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And CSIS flagged this specifically. NASA's got one VAB stacking bay, one mobile launch platform. If Artemis III sits in the VAB waiting on a lander, that SLS can't move and the Artemis IV stack can't start building. Max: Which is why the ICPS decision is actually more important than it sounds. According to NASA, they are preserving that last upper stage for Artemis IV's lift margin. That's a concrete sign they're protecting the landing mission, but protecting it from what? Speaker 3: From Artemis III blowing up the schedule, pretty much. Max: Exactly. And NASA's own statement says Lander readiness determines. Which provider flies on Artemis IV? So the June ninth mission progress update, that's where I'm watching, not the crew names. Blake: You think they'll reveal which lander is actually leading for Artemis IV? Max: Skeptically, I think they'll hedge. NASA's language has been "whichever vehicle is most ready." That's not a selection, that's a waiting game. SpaceX still hasn't flight tested propellant transfer, Blue Origin's Mark One just finished environmental testing. Blake: Okay, but here's where I push back a little: if the Artemis III docking test actually works, both landers, clean Rendezvous, real data, that compresses the qualification timeline for IV significantly. Max: If" that's doing a lot of work in this sentence. Blake: Fair, it is a big "If"; but the schedule is survivable if the hardware cooperates. Max: The NASA Inspector General flagged in their 2026 report that the lander might not be ready for a 2028 landing. That's the agency's own watchdog. Blake: And that's where June 9th actually becomes appointment viewing, not for who's going, but for what they say or don't say about lander delivery windows. That gap between the press release and the progress update is where the real story lives. Max: So what are we predicting? Because next week we're going to find out. Blake: Oh, you're going to love this part. So, predictions time: June ninth is less than two weeks out. I'll go first. Speaker 3: Let's hear it. Blake: Andre Douglas—he backed up the entire Artemis II prime crew, he knows Orion procedures cold, and this mission is basically a docking rehearsal—he's the most logical fit on the roster. I'm also betting no ESA seat, Gateway's gone, and Director General Aschbacher set himself he needs a new plan before the June Council meeting on the sixteenth. Max: That's a solid read, no contractual basis for an ESA seat on a pure test flight, and ESA is still sorting out what it even owes NASA after the Gateway cancellation. Blake: Exactly; so, Andre in and no European flag patch. Max: Okay, my prediction is less about the names and more about what the mission profile Speaker 4: will be. Max: This in progress update actually says, I'm watching for lander delivery language. If NASA commits to a firm Pathfinder delivery schedule from both SpaceX and Blue Origin, that's news. If they hedge to one lander or go vague on timing, that's your signal the late 2027 window is already slipping. Blake: And we know from the OIG report there's real risk flagged on lander readiness, so any wiggle room in the language matters. Max: A lot. Specific dates are the tale. Watch how many times they say no earlier than versus an actual month. Blake: NASA's favorite phrase. Max: Really is. Okay, three things to track before the next episode. One, lander delivery updates from SpaceX and Blue Origin, specifically any Pathfinder milestone dates. Blake: Mm-hmm. Max: Two, what comes out of ESA's June 16th council meeting. Does Aschbacher land revised Artemis seat agreement? agreement or does Europe walk away empty handed. Blake: And three, the Artemis III SLS RS-25 engine delivery to Kennedy Space Center. That's scheduled no later than July twenty twenty six. If it slips, the whole downstream stack moves with it. Max: That one's your early warning system. Engine at KSC on time means they're still building toward late twenty twenty seven. Engine slips means the schedule is already broken before the landers even matter. Blake: So, circle June 9th. Watch the press conference carefully; the names are the headline, but the mission progress update is the story. Max: And if we're wrong on any of this, we'll hear about it. Blake: We'll revisit every single prediction-that's the whole deal. Okay, so that's a wrap on what I'd call a genuinely meaty one, Blake. Max: No kidding. And honestly, the line that's going to stick with me, the names are the candy, but the mission update is the actual meal. Blake: Said it perfectly. And that is the whole tension here. Everyone showing up June 9th for the astronaut reveal, and the real story is whether NASA's mission progress language signals lander readiness or more schedule padding. Max: Right, right. And we laid down our predictions. André Douglas, no ESA seat, watch the lander delivery language closely. Blake: Accountability episode incoming. We will revisit every single one. Max: Playfully looking forward to being wrong in public as always. Blake: Same. All right, if this episode helped you sort out what Artemis III actually is now versus what it was supposed to be, share it with someone who's still confused about why we're going back to the moon. Max: Yeah. Subscribe wherever you listen. We'll be back right after June 9th with a full breakdown. Breakdown. Blake: Warmly, thanks for being here. See you on the other side of that announcement.

Max: Welcome to Landing the Moon. I'm Max, Blake is here with me, and okay, this week we have a date. Blake: June 9, NASA drops the Artemis III crew live at Johnson Space Center, four names, 11 a.m. Eastern time. Max: Right, and look, the names will get all the headlines, but the mission progress update buried in that same event, that's the thing we actually care about. Blake: Because Artemis III is not the moon landing anymore. It's a docking test in low... Low Earth orbit, Orion rendezvous with Starship HLS, Blue Origin, or maybe both, late 2027 target. Max: Which is wild when you remember this mission was supposed to put boots on the lunar South Pole. Blake: It was, and then it wasn't, and then the date slipped repeatedly. Max: It repeatedly. Blake: Plot twist, NASA confirmed the late 2027 target only after NASA Administrator Isaacman told the House Appropriations Committee Both SpaceX and Blue Origin said they could be ready. We will be pressing on that. Max: Oh, we will dig into that hard, because they said they'd be ready and they are ready are very different sentences. Blake: Very different. And here's where it gets good. There's also a non-proposal spacer replacing the ICPS on this flight. The European Service Module is doing all the orbital work, and NASA's own language about crew possibly entering a lander is doing a lot of heavy lifting. around what they don't know yet. Max: We've got crew selection politics, engineering decisions, lander readiness, the downstream stakes for Artemis IV and V, and we're closing with hard predictions before the June 9th announcement so we can be held accountable. Blake: Let's get into it. Max: Okay, so get this. June 9th, NASA is holding a live event at Johnson Space Center, 11 a.m. Eastern, streaming on NASA Plus and YouTube, and they're naming the four astronauts assigned to Artemis III. Blake: Four names on a stage. Big moment. Max: Big moment, absolutely. And I will watch those four names drop like I'm watching a front office build something real. But Blake, tell me you're not just here for the theater. Blake: Oh, I'm barely here for the names. According to NASA's own press release, this event isn't just a crew reveal. They're delivering a mission progress update at the same time. That's the part worth your attention. Max: Right, right, because the names are the spectacle, but the machinery structuring is what actually matters. Blake: Exactly. And look, this program has a history. Artemis slips dates. Artemis III was originally supposed to land astronauts on the Moon. Boom. Max: Mm-hmm. Blake: Full stop. That didn't happen. NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman confirmed in February 2026 that the mission got restructured entirely. Now it stays in Earth orbit. So they took the moon landing off the board, moved it to Artemis IV, targeting 2028. Artemis III is now basically an Apollo IX analog. You go to low Earth orbit, you dock Orion with one or both of the commercial landers from SpaceX. From SpaceX and Blue Origin you stress test the hardware. Max: Which honestly, NASA's own description calls Blake: One Max: it wow. of the most complex missions they've ever undertaken for an Earth orbit mission, when you call a holding pattern hugely complex, that's a governance tell. Blake: It tells you the docking piece is genuinely hard. You've got two separately launched commercial vehicles, Starship HLS and Blue Moon Mark II, and Orion has to rendezvous with them in a f***. In a four hundred sixty three kilometer orbit. None of this is solved yet. Max: Quickly, and Artemis II only splashed down in the Pacific on April 10th, less than two months ago. The speed here isn't exhilaration, it's compression. Blake: Fast-ish. The Space.com report noted the early twenty twenty seven target already slipped to late twenty twenty seven because of lander development delays from both SpaceX and Blue Origin. Max: So we're watching a crew reveal for a late twenty twenty seven mission. And that nobody's fully locked down yet on hardware that's still being assembled. That's not just subtext, that's the actual text of this whole June 9th event. Blake: Welcome to Artemis. Max: Chuckling. And here's what I want to know, because crew selection is never random, it's a referendum. Who NASA puts in those four seats on a mission this unsettled tells you exactly what the agency is willing to bet on right now. So who's it going to be? So here's the thing about that crew list: read it like a policy document. What do you mean? Blake: Every seat NASA fills signals something. Risk tolerance, diplomatic priorities, bench depth-the names tell you what the agency actually values right now. Max: Fair, and the obvious starting point is the Artemis II backup crew. Andre Douglas, Jenni Gibbons-both have Orion-specific training. That's real institutional knowledge. Blake: Right, they're natural fits, but NASA has formally opened eligibility. Eligibility to the entire active astronaut corps, that 2020 Artemis team of 18 no longer a binding short list, according to SpaceNews. Max: So you could theoretically get somebody totally unexpected. Blake: You could, Max: Mm-hmm. Blake: but I'd argue the mission itself is the filter. This is a docking-focused flight. Rendezvous and docking, that's the whole job. Max: 100%. So you'd want someone who's actually commanded a docking. Jonny Kim, Anne McClain, Matthew Dominick. These are names that keep coming up because the operational experience maps directly onto the mission. Blake: Noting TalkOfTitusville had a good breakdown on this, docking experience commanders are logical pick when the central objective is rendezvous with two commercial landers. Max: And then there's the international seat question, which is where it gets messy. Blake: Oh, it's a mess. Here's the short version. ESA's contractual seat access was tied to great weight contributions. NASA killed Gateway on March twenty fourth. With no gateway, no contractual ESA seat, not on Artemis III anyway. Max: So ESA built service modules, contributed hardware, and now the seat they were trading for just evaporated? Blake: Basically, yeah. Aschbacher told SpaceNews he's bringing a revised partner plan to the ESA Council in June. They're renegotiating from scratch. Max: That's a rough spot for Europe diplomatically. Blake: It is. And here's my push on this. Does an international seat even make sense on a hardware test flight? Max: I'd say no. If the primary objective is validating docking systems, you want your most experienced docking crew, full stop. Diplomatic goodwill can wait for Artemis IV, where it actually matters. Matters. Someone walks on the Moon. Blake: See, I go back and forth. Max: Hmm. Blake: Canada earned its Artemis II seat through Canadarm contributions. Jenni Gibbons, with her Orion training, she might actually be the best of both worlds. Max: Okay, fair concession; but whoever they pick, they need to know exactly what they're flying into, and the mission profile itself has some genuinely wild engineering decisions baked in. Which is where this gets really interesting, because the hardware story might be stranger than the crew story. Blake: That's exactly where we're going next. So the crew politics are wild, but here's the engineering story underneath all of it, and this is where it gets good. Max: Right, because whoever flies needs to be ready for a mission profile that looks nothing like what Artemis III was supposed to be. Blake: Nothing. So NASA's official outline, published May 13th, describes Artemis III as a crewed rendezvous and docking test in low Earth orbit. Four crew, SLS carries Orion up, European Service Module circularizes the orbit. That's it for propulsion. Max: No lunar trajectory; no deep space. Closest analog is Apollo Nine—same idea, test the lander hardware in Earth orbit before you commit to the big one. Blake: Exactly—and the ICPS decision is the tell. NASA's not flying its last Interim Cryogenic Propulsion Stage—that's the upper stage that pushed Artemis One and Two toward the Moon—they're replacing it with what they're literally calling a "spacer." Max: A spacer like a structural place holder. Blake: Deadpan, fabricated at Marshall Space Flight Center right now—same dimensions, same mass, Max: Wow. Blake: no engine—it's a dummy upper stage. Max: And the reason is actually smart: they've got one ICPS left, and Artemis Four actually needs the energy to reach lunar orbit. Blake: You save the one irreplaceable part for the mission that matters. LEO doesn't need it, so don't burn it. Max: I get the logic. My concern is schedule. They're machining this thing now, and Artemis III is targeting late 2027. That's not a lot of margin. Blake: Fair. And then there's the heat shield story. According to SatNews, Artemis III will debut an upgraded heat shield block configuration specifically designed to address the ablation anomalies from Artemis I. Max: Where AFCOT gases built up, cracked, chunks came off. Not ideal on a crewed vehicle. Blake: Not ideal. So this flight validates the fix in a real re-entry environment. environment before Artemis IV faces actual lunar return speeds. Max: Okay, so, docking test, heat shield validation, those are concrete objectives; then there's the third one, which is murkier. Blake: Oh, here it is: NASA's own language from May thirteenth outline: "Astronauts could potentially enter at least one lander test article. Max: Could potentially. Blake: Two words that tell you everything about how ready those landers actually are right now. Now Max: Which is the question that takes us to the next conversation entirely—what can SpaceX and Blue Origin actually deliver by late 2027? Blake: So if that could potentially enter hanging in the air, let's talk about why it's hanging there. Both landers are behind schedule. Max: SpaceX is the more obvious case. Starship HLS can't go to the moon without on-orbit propellant transfer. That demo was supposed to happen by mid-2025, slipped to early to mid-2026. According to Spaceflight Now, the propellant transfer campaign started around March 2025 and completing over the summer. Summer. Neither happened. Blake: Right, right, right. And NASA's own Inspector General flagged it in their March 2026 report, SpaceX has not done in-space refueling, has not flown an uncrewed Starship HLS to the moon, two key milestones, both still pending. Max: So what are we actually testing in late 2027? Docking. Just docking. Blake: I mean, look, I'd argue that's not nothing. If Orion can't dock clean with a vehicle the size of Starship, you've got a bigger problem. A docking test has real engineering value. Max: Sure, but here's where I have a contract management problem. NASA's own language and the Wikipedia summary of their May 2026 statement means the mission is being written around whatever SpaceX and Blue Origin can actually show up with. That's the agency building a schedule around contractor deliverables. that haven't been demonstrated yet. Speaker 3: Oh, and Blue Origin's situation is honestly kind of wild. Blue Moon Mark II almost certainly can't arrive before the 2030s, so Blue Origin has been working on a crewed variant of the Mark I design, informally called Mark 1.5. Meanwhile, there's a full-scale Mark II cabin mock-up sitting at Johnson Space Center right now for astronaut training. Max: Wait, they're training on a mock-up for a vehicle that can't fly on this mission? Speaker 3: And that's the program. Blue Origin paused New Shepard flights entirely to push... to push resources toward the lander. To be fair, the Mark 1 uncrewed cargo variant did complete vacuum chamber tests at Johnson. That's a concrete milestone. Max: Hmm. I'm on both sides a little bit. The hardware progress is real, but NASA calling both vehicles pathfinders while simultaneously announcing the crew, that's framing papers over the fact that crew entry into a lander, which is the hardest part, is still a maybe. Speaker 3: And NASA Administrator Isaacman confirmed before the House Appropriations Committee in April of 2026 that delays from both providers pushed the target to late 2027, not mid. late. Max: So the schedule pressure is acknowledged at the highest level. That actually matters heading into Artemis 4 because Artemis 4 is the real landing. Everything Artemis 3 proves or doesn't feeds directly into whether that 2028 date holds at all. Speaker 3: And the ICPS they saved for Artemis 4? That's the one concrete sign they're protecting the landing mission's lift margin. They're betting hard on that 2028 window. Max: A single upper stage carrying the weight of fifty years of Apollo nostalgia. No pressure. Speaker 3: So with all that lander uncertainty still hanging, here's the thing that keeps me up at night. The crew named on June 9th isn't actually flying to the moon. Max: Right. They're flying the pre-qualification trial for the moon mission. Everything they do on Artemis III feeds directly into whether Artemis IV holds its early 2028 landing target. Speaker 3: And 2028 is the mission that actually matters. First humans on the lunar surface since Apollo 17. Max: Mm-hmm. Speaker 3: That's what's on the line. Max: So here's my question, Max. NASA's targeting early 2028 for Artemis IV and late 2028 for Artemis V. That's two lunar landings in one calendar year with almost zero schedule margin. Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. And CSIS flagged this specifically. NASA's got one VAB stacking bay, one mobile launch platform. If Artemis III sits in the VAB waiting on a lander, that SLS can't move and the Artemis IV stack can't start building. Max: Which is why the ICPS decision is actually more important than it sounds. According to NASA, they are preserving that last upper stage for Artemis IV's lift margin. That's a concrete sign they're protecting the landing mission, but protecting it from what? Speaker 3: From Artemis III blowing up the schedule, pretty much. Max: Exactly. And NASA's own statement says Lander readiness determines. Which provider flies on Artemis IV? So the June ninth mission progress update, that's where I'm watching, not the crew names. Blake: You think they'll reveal which lander is actually leading for Artemis IV? Max: Skeptically, I think they'll hedge. NASA's language has been "whichever vehicle is most ready." That's not a selection, that's a waiting game. SpaceX still hasn't flight tested propellant transfer, Blue Origin's Mark One just finished environmental testing. Blake: Okay, but here's where I push back a little: if the Artemis III docking test actually works, both landers, clean Rendezvous, real data, that compresses the qualification timeline for IV significantly. Max: If" that's doing a lot of work in this sentence. Blake: Fair, it is a big "If"; but the schedule is survivable if the hardware cooperates. Max: The NASA Inspector General flagged in their 2026 report that the lander might not be ready for a 2028 landing. That's the agency's own watchdog. Blake: And that's where June 9th actually becomes appointment viewing, not for who's going, but for what they say or don't say about lander delivery windows. That gap between the press release and the progress update is where the real story lives. Max: So what are we predicting? Because next week we're going to find out. Blake: Oh, you're going to love this part. So, predictions time: June ninth is less than two weeks out. I'll go first. Speaker 3: Let's hear it. Blake: Andre Douglas—he backed up the entire Artemis II prime crew, he knows Orion procedures cold, and this mission is basically a docking rehearsal—he's the most logical fit on the roster. I'm also betting no ESA seat, Gateway's gone, and Director General Aschbacher set himself he needs a new plan before the June Council meeting on the sixteenth. Max: That's a solid read, no contractual basis for an ESA seat on a pure test flight, and ESA is still sorting out what it even owes NASA after the Gateway cancellation. Blake: Exactly; so, Andre in and no European flag patch. Max: Okay, my prediction is less about the names and more about what the mission profile Speaker 4: will be. Max: This in progress update actually says, I'm watching for lander delivery language. If NASA commits to a firm Pathfinder delivery schedule from both SpaceX and Blue Origin, that's news. If they hedge to one lander or go vague on timing, that's your signal the late 2027 window is already slipping. Blake: And we know from the OIG report there's real risk flagged on lander readiness, so any wiggle room in the language matters. Max: A lot. Specific dates are the tale. Watch how many times they say no earlier than versus an actual month. Blake: NASA's favorite phrase. Max: Really is. Okay, three things to track before the next episode. One, lander delivery updates from SpaceX and Blue Origin, specifically any Pathfinder milestone dates. Blake: Mm-hmm. Max: Two, what comes out of ESA's June 16th council meeting. Does Aschbacher land revised Artemis seat agreement? agreement or does Europe walk away empty handed. Blake: And three, the Artemis III SLS RS-25 engine delivery to Kennedy Space Center. That's scheduled no later than July twenty twenty six. If it slips, the whole downstream stack moves with it. Max: That one's your early warning system. Engine at KSC on time means they're still building toward late twenty twenty seven. Engine slips means the schedule is already broken before the landers even matter. Blake: So, circle June 9th. Watch the press conference carefully; the names are the headline, but the mission progress update is the story. Max: And if we're wrong on any of this, we'll hear about it. Blake: We'll revisit every single prediction-that's the whole deal. Okay, so that's a wrap on what I'd call a genuinely meaty one, Blake. Max: No kidding. And honestly, the line that's going to stick with me, the names are the candy, but the mission update is the actual meal. Blake: Said it perfectly. And that is the whole tension here. Everyone showing up June 9th for the astronaut reveal, and the real story is whether NASA's mission progress language signals lander readiness or more schedule padding. Max: Right, right. And we laid down our predictions. André Douglas, no ESA seat, watch the lander delivery language closely. Blake: Accountability episode incoming. We will revisit every single one. Max: Playfully looking forward to being wrong in public as always. Blake: Same. All right, if this episode helped you sort out what Artemis III actually is now versus what it was supposed to be, share it with someone who's still confused about why we're going back to the moon. Max: Yeah. Subscribe wherever you listen. We'll be back right after June 9th with a full breakdown. Breakdown. Blake: Warmly, thanks for being here. See you on the other side of that announcement.