Jared Isaacman will have quite a lot on his plate in his role of running America’s space agency once he is fully confirmed. On the top of the list is what to do about sending humans both to the moon and to Mars, which Isaacman proposes to do simultaneously.

“As the president stated we will prioritize sending American astronauts to Mars," Isaacman said during his confirmation hearings. "Along the way, we will inevitably have the capabilities to return to the Moon and determine the scientific, economic, and national security benefits of maintaining a presence on the lunar surface.”

The plan is to conduct the Artemis II lunar circumnavigation mission and the Artemis III moon landing with hardware that already exists — that is, the Orion space capsule and the uber-expensive Space Launch System. Artemis III will also include a Human Landing System based on the SpaceX Starship. The strategy is laid out in the White House budget proposal, which states, vaguely, that after Artemis III the current lunar architecture will be replaced “with more cost-effective commercial systems that would support more ambitious subsequent lunar missions."

The usual Washington method of determining something like........

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