NASA under Jared Isaacman is treating Artemis III as a test mission, not a social experiment.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
A few days ago, I reported that the Artemis III crew had been selected and were gearing up for intense training ahead of their 2027 mission.
To this eye, the qualifications of this team seemed…outstanding,especially as this mission will be validating docking and crew transfer with newly developed commercial lunar landers.
- Commander Randy “Komrade” Bresnik: Former Marine fighter pilot and TOPGUN graduate; spent 149 days in space across a 2009 shuttle mission and a 2017 ISS expedition.
- Pilot Luca Parmitano: European Space Agency astronaut; Italian Air Force test pilot and first Italian commander of the ISS.
- Mission Specialist Douglas: Test engineer and Coast Guard Reserve commander; Artemis III will be his first spaceflight after serving as backup crew on Artemis II.
- Mission Specialist Frank Rubio: Army Black Hawk pilot and family physician; set a U.S. record with 371 consecutive days aboard the ISS (2022–2023).
However, according to influencers and media-wokeists, the crew lacked one essential element for this mission: A uterus.
When NASA’s Artemis III mission launches next year, the crew won’t include any women — a revelation that sparked controversy after the agency on Tuesday announced the four astronauts selected for the flight.
“Not a single woman flying on Artemis III is an insane choice,” Alexandra Doten, a space influencer who goes by Astro Alexandra, posted on X on Tuesday.
Because a womb is what’s most important to this mission.
Not a single woman flying on Artemis III is an insane choice
— Astro Alexandra Space Communicator (@astro_alexandra) June 9, 2026
NASA Chief Jared Isaacman quickly quashed this inanity.
Isaacman said that some astronauts may not have been selected for the Artemis III flight because they are already on tap for expeditions to the International Space Station or because their training and skill sets make them more suitable for future Artemis missions, during which astronauts are expected to land on the moon.
“The Astronaut Office assigns the crew that gives the mission the best chance of meeting its objectives, taking into account many factors, including the background and expertise of the astronauts, such as test pilot experience, development work on specific programs, and availability,” he said.
However, wokeits and DEI cultists continued to whine.
Rather than alleviating frustrations, the post seems to have initiated a brand-new wave of backlash. One comment reads, “‘I have friends who are women, so I like get how it feels’. Signed, NASA man.” Another says, “@nasa has launched 44 all-male crews and 0 all-female crews. We never have to doubt whether a man will get a spot on the crew, but we never know if a woman will get one.”
Yet another commenter said, “So what I’m reading is that we have incredibly qualified women, we just didn’t pick them for this mission?” There were a few more lighthearted jabs at the statement as well, including one comment reading, “A swing and an artemiss.”
It turns out that because this particular team will be helping develop the lunar landers that will eventually be used as part of the Artemis program, their piloting and military skills were essential. NASA’s Bob Hines, a past SpaceX pilot and ISS astronaut, is the backup for Artemis III and stresses the test-nature of the 2027 mission.
While Hines did not get into specifics about crew qualifications, Artemis 3 is heavily a test-piloting mission as the astronauts may be meeting with both SpaceX and Blue Origin moon landers to get the machines ready for the real deal. That may be why all four Artemis 3 astronauts are drawn from the military, with considerable flying experience between them.
Artemis III is not a social experiment but a high-risk, high-precision test mission meant to push hardware, procedures, and human performance to their limits. The priority is not optics; it is execution.
NASA selected a crew with deep test pilot experience, operational discipline, and mission-specific readiness because failure is not an abstract concept in spaceflight, rather it is a potential catastrophe that can result in the death of the astronauts and a severe setback to the American space program. Those demanding demographic box-checking over demonstrated capability are, quite simply, arguing for the wrong metric at the worst possible time.
If Artemis is to succeed and if our nation intends to remain competitive in a rapidly evolving space race—then competence must remain the standard. Everything else is secondary.
What a weird thing to be upset about. Why does it matter? We are all human. The best of the best were picked. It just happened to be men. Maybe it will be all women on the next one. Who knows. These kind of posts are so silly.
— Ryan (@MarsResident027) June 9, 2026
Not being politically correct shows the priorities. NASA under Obama was “Muslim outreach”, as if that had anything to do with space.
I was in the Navy before it put women in crews, and I at first saw the only problem with women being their lack of physical strength in an environment where every single crewman was expected to be part of damage control in one way or another. But what the hey, I was on a carrier, and if all 5000 crew are fighting fires and repairing damage, that ship is sinking anyway. Even if half the crew aren’t using their physical strength to keep the overhead from crashing to the deck, you’re never going to have half the crew fighting damage and repairing damage.
Then I found out it was only something like 10% women, and I was horrified. I had been at sea for months on end, and my imagination ran riot with all the males competing for the attention of those 10% females, all the jealousies and breakup blues. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the males still get along with everyone. Maybe the females don’t play favorites. But it seemed like a recipe for destroying cohesiveness and morale.
These space missions don’t last nearly as long. If physical strength becomes vital, they’re dead anyway. But mixed crews don’t strike me as conducive to concentrating on the mission.
The physical strength is really only at issue when SHE gets called upon to carry her Male Counterparts down to Sick Bay because they can’t walk and need swift Evac!
Yes. “Free rider” seems a bit harsh, but it’s not wrong.
Nevermind.
Total numbers is not the relevant number/ What matters is the sailors who are closest to the emergency at the time it breaks out. If one of those sailors lacks the physical strength to do the job that is needed, then there is a chance that people will die, who didn’t need to die.
The Astronauts just have to pretend to be women.. Problem solved !! 😉
They just need to Identify as Female, all 4, then problem solved!
Actually NASA should do just that to prove the ridiculousness of the whole concept of “Anyone can be a Woman”. Show the Men in their spacesuits, sans helmets, and publicly announce the crew, as they enter the capsule, as being the “First All Woman Crew.” After all…What Is A Woman???
Especially if the only requirement is to Identify as such!
They will simultaneously complain that there are no women on the mission, and proclaim that no one can define what a woman is to any extent it is someone who ‘feels’ like a woman. They will do this unironically.
JMO. Gender has to with notional physical strength (until later in life)—women qualifying as Rangers proves there are many exceptions. Nothing to do with skills or general ability. All this ARTEMIS selection says is that NASA has appropriately gotten rid of DEI.
Obstacle course has 2 wall heights.
Pullups or flexed arm hang?
Just how important is strength in space? When you are floating weightless it really doesn’t matter how strong you are.
Perhaps educate yourself and google manual operation of Artemis Spaceship hatches. Hydraulics and gearboxes don’t give a toss if you are space or on earth you need to exert the same force.
You may want to look back at 2023 with Christina Hammock Koch and checking she could do it in the required time
https://www.instagram.com/p/CzcUiB9u8G-/
Due to multiple dockings now planned with Artemis 3 they have changed the design of some hatches. If you do a search on “Artemis 3 docking hatch issues” it will give you a start point.
I don’t think anyone cares if it’s a man or a woman who operates those things so long as they can do it in the required time.
Weightless…perhaps…Massless…definitely not.
Among the many things that Izaak doesn’t know, is the difference between weight and mass.
Unfortunately very few women have qualified as Rangers–most have washed out. Plenty of men wash out too, but it is a lower percentage.
For the record, I support the notion that if the draft returns, women should also be drafted. There are plenty of jobs women can do as well or better than men, and vice versa. Utilize the talents in front of you. Nothing in this suggests that everyone is of equal ability, since they are not and never will be.
Were the Ranger requirements for women the same as for men?
Gender only has to do with behavior, masculine and feminine. Sex has to do with strength.
Thank you.
Gender and sex are two socially conflated terms.
And here I was thinking Sex had to do with Stamina. (Well Good Sex anyway)
[duplicate]
A no-nonsense decision that pays dividends, e.g., no nonsense. I hope sober-minded decision-making becomes the norm again, and maybe one day the news will just be full of news. No more whining, please.
This part is not rocket science–let someone, male or female, step forward and claim they are more qualified than someone chosen for the mission, and why. As a scientist I fail to see how gender is a technical qualification.
A couple of points:
I’d probably worry more it if was MY wife or daughter flying this mission (and probably the next one or two).
Maybe the appropriate female pilots are busy flying current attack or fighter missions right now. Or SARS, or anything they’d think was more important at this moment.
Pull your Big Girl Panties up and GET OVER IT!
There will be missions that include women too. Just Not This One!!!
There may be even men who volunteer their wives. Just saying.
My wife laughed a lot at your comment, Ed Z. She commented how stupid some women can be.
Geoff S
There are many, even practical reasons males are preferred on such missions. We are simpler organisms and easier to maintain as well as being more robust than females. A number of changes would need to be implemented to accommodate a female(s). Mentally, males tend to focus on one thing at a time, while women tend to tend the larger picture. On a test mission, males would do better as they test individual systems. On sailboats with male/female couples, the male is usually and overwhelmingly expected to do the heavy lifting and mechanical repairs. It is the rare female who runs a sailboat alone and deals with all the crises.
Female reproduction is also more at risk than male in a radiation environment, low level that it is.
Technical question for those who know about these things to do with the internet.
Do you have to be certified stupid to be classed as an influencer?
No but it helps, same as being a climate activist really.
And even stupider to be influenced by them !!
Never really understood the concept of “influencer”. We all have enough things on our minds, enough problems to solve-without somebody trying to tell us what to think,
Follow the money. If somebody gets paid to tell us what to think, they will tell us. If we listen to them, they will get more money.
Influence: Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth.
Stupid is as stupid does and it helps to be stupid to influence other stupids. In my mind, an influencer, almost by definition, is one who provides groundless advice, via little to no experience, to others who are equally clueless. Sitting around giving others advice as if the influencer is an experienced shaman is a vacuous and stupid job in the first place.
It’s a good job that this sort of thing wasn’t around 60 years ago, when the only woman to go into space was a one off by the USSR in 1962.
Surely the only requirement is for the astronauts to be able to fulfill the mission roles not on their biology. This is why the early US space programme used fast jet pilots.
From the above article:
“To this eye, the qualifications of this team seemed…outstanding, especially as this mission will be validating docking and crew transfer with newly developed commercial lunar landers.”
(my bold emphasis added)
The above article, at its very basics, has this fatal flaw—that is, other than the sarcastically-noted missing uterus: there will be no flight-qualified commercial lunar landers available for the Artemis III Orion crew capsule to dock with.
Artemis III is scheduled to launch in “late 2027”.
There currently is no SpaceX Starship Human Landing System (HLS) vehicle that NASA originally contracted in April 2021 for target launch date as early as 2025. This timeline was tied to the then-declared objective for landing humans on the Moon as the Artemis III mission.
The basic Starship space vehicle has yet to even orbit Earth, let alone:
— be fitted with a life-support system,
— be fitted with seats (and admittedly-optional viewports) for the human crew,
— be fitted with on-board avionics and human primary/emergency rocket control capability,
— be fitted with a docking collar and airlock for vehicle-to-vehicle transfer of astronauts,
— be fitted with necessary solar panels to supply electricity over the mission’s duration,
— be fitted with lunar landing legs,
— be fitted with newly developed, ox-methane rockets (max thrust in the range of 10,000 to 20,000 lbf each) for lunar landing retro firing to achieve a soft landing and subsequently to be used for lunar surface liftoff, in each case without stirring up lunar regolith,
— be fitted with an astronaut elevator for access to/from the lunar surface,
— to have successfully demonstrated required zero-g, in-orbit refueling of cryogenic propellants,
— to have successfully demonstrated that the thermal insulation of the HLS vehicle is adequate to minimize propellant boiloff for the planned Artemis III mission duration of approximately 14 days,
— to have successfully demonstrated the needed reliability (i.e., “human rating”) of the new “Raptor 3” engines, one of which failed during its use (May 22, 2026) on Starship IFT12 booster ascent, and 12 more that failed/exploded during the booster’s burn-back engine relights, and one of which failed on the Starship space vehicle’s burn to suborbital trajectory. That’s a total failure of 14 engines out of 39, or a reliability of only 64%!
Separately, Blue Origin currently has only a prototype (“Blue Moon Mark 1”) of its unmanned cargo lunar lander . . . nothing approaching a human-rated lunar lander and all that such involves (as per above). Moreover, with the massive pad explosion of its integrated New Glenn rocket on May 28, 2026, Blue Origin will likely not even have the ability to launch that prototype cargo lander into Earth orbit by end-2027.
So, does anyone really think NASA will be conducting “docking and crew transfer with newly-developed commercial lunar landers” during the Artemis III mission as is being fronted by NASA for public consumption?
Whether or not the Artemis III crew is all male, all female, or a mix of genders is so far down the priority list as to be just laughable . . . Artemis III currently doesn’t have a useful mission if one believes the flight history of the Orion capsule makes it “man-rated”.
Good grief!
Was it Blue Origin that sent up an all female (celebrity) crew for an about 15-20 minute test flight?
(It went into space but came right back down. No attempt to orbit.)
Who complained about no men on that?
They called them “crew”, despite the fact that the entire flight was 100% automated.
Done to (a) give the passengers an important-sounding title to enhance their egos, and more importantly (b) to get around heavy safety and insurance regulations if they were officially declared to be paying customers, this being the same rationale used by Oceangate for those who wanted to ride the submersible “Titan” down to deep ocean depths to visit the sunken ship “Titanic”.
Why is that those who claim others are racist, sexist, or whatever, judge everything by the very things they claim to oppose? Can’t they see that they are guilty of the very thing they oppose?
(Unless it’s women’s sports. They say guys are welcome to play in them.)
Would it be okay to have an all-male crew if half the crew were trans-men?
“The priority is not optics”
More abuse of the word “optics”.
NASA currently has 21 male and 17 female astronauts.
Information is sketchy as to which are “space ready.”
Competency drives the candidate selection for a mission.
This mission falls in the category of test flight, as such candidates with test flight experience get the nod.
One thing to consider is the possibility that one or more of the female astronauts is going to be selected for the moon landing.
Typo: 15 female astronauts.
NASA may have 36 Women Astronauts… Who’s to say how hey ALL Identify?
3 former NASA female astronauts came out as lesbian. So now they are classified as LGBTQIA+ or whatever the current alphabet soup acronym is.
Sorry, that is not a “possibility” . . . it is a certainty.
For a very long time, NASA publicized that the Artemis III primary mission was to land the first “person of color” AND “the first woman” on the Moon.
Eventually, NASA came to realize that this was far too “aggressive” (read that as risky) a timeline for the Artemis program, and thus slipped the first manned landing to Artemis IV. In parallel, NASA did a makeover of the publicized objective for the Artemis IV primary mission objectives so that they now read:
“Artemis IV astronauts will travel to lunar orbit, where two crew members will descend to the surface and spend approximately a week near the South Pole of the Moon conducting new science before returning to lunar orbit to join their crew for the journey back to Earth.”
(ref: https://www.nasa.gov/mission/artemis-iv/ )
NASA still maintains the ridiculously-targeted launch date for Artemis IV of “early 2028” . . . now less than 2 years away!
Nevertheless, just imagine the political fallout that would occur if after all this time and associated promises, NASA decided to not land the first “person of color” and the first woman on the Moon on the occasion of the first Artemis mission to land humans on the Moon!
BTW, NASA and SpaceX plan to conduct an uncrewed flight test of the Starship Human Landing System (HLS), named the Uncrewed Demonstration Flight, that will land on the Moon prior to the first crewed lunar mission. This is not an officially-designated Artemis mission, apparently because such a test flight—believe it or not!—was never baselined into the original Artemis program’s “aggressive” schedule.
So it get’s even worse: anyone . . . anyone at all . . . really think that SpaceX can pull off everything that remains to be done, per my post above, to create a flight worthy Starship HLS vehicle ready to fly to and land and then liftoff from the Moon’s surface, in less than the next two years???