Who Will Make The Sammiches?

Following the stunning success of the Artemis II mission* which saw the first manned fly-by of the moon since I was a toddler with the minor inconvenience of the shitter plugging up multiple times: Sheeeiiitttt In Space!…

….NASA is preparing for the next phase of the Artemis mission series which will culminate in the amazing feat of replicating what NASA already did over half a century ago, landing men on the moon!

Oops, did I say men?

The crew of the third stage, Artemis III, was just announced and it has all the very best people in a tizzy:

NASA Marches Toward Artemis III Mission in 2027, Names Crew Members

Taking another step toward one of the most complex human spaceflight missions in recent history, NASA on Tuesday provided new Artemis III details and announced the four prime crew members and a backup for the test flight. The mission will undertake a series of challenging tests in Earth orbit in 2027, essential for Artemis IV, the first planned crewed mission to the lunar South Pole in 2028.

During Artemis III, the agency’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket will launch the Orion spacecraft and its crew from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to low Earth orbit. After Orion systems checkouts, the spacecraft will, for the first time, demonstrate rendezvous and docking capabilities with test versions from one, or both, American commercial human landing systems in development by Blue Origin and SpaceX. This highly choreographed mission includes a dramatic multi-launch campaign of the world’s most powerful rockets, testing integrated hardware between Orion and the landers, including system interfaces, software, propulsion, and communications.

Crew assignments are as follows:

• NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, commander
• ESA (European Space Agency) astronaut Luca Parmitano, pilot
• NASA astronaut Andre Douglas, mission specialist
• NASA astronaut Frank Rubio, mission specialist

WHAT?!?! No strong, independent, fierce women than don’t need no man?

Where are the menstruating-Americans? Even the back-up is a dude named Bob Hines!

While the two guys seated, Italian pilot Luca Parmitano on the left and mission commander Randy Bresnik on the right, are White men, the other two are a black guy named Andre Douglas and a mestizo named Frank Rubio (his bio takes pains to note that his mom lives in El Salvador). That isn’t nearly diverse enough as there are no women, much less neurodivergent black Muslim gender fluid he/she women in wheelchairs!

How can a flight into space have two White guys, I guess they get special treatment just because they are White men and White men single-handedly made space flight possible in the first place.

As an aside, the black guy, Andre Douglas, has pretty OK credentials….

Andre Douglas was selected by NASA to join the 2021 Astronaut Candidate Class. He reported for duty in January 2022. The Virginia native earned a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy, a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, a master’s degree in naval architecture and marine engineering from the University of Michigan, a master’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, and a doctorate in systems engineering from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C. Douglas served in the U.S. Coast Guard as a naval architect, salvage engineer, damage control assistant, and officer of the deck. Upon selection, Douglas was a senior professional staff member at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab (APL) working on maritime robotics, planetary defense, and space exploration missions.

Well that seems OK. A bachelor’s, three master’s degrees and a doctorate. On the other hand everybody in the astronaut program has crazy qualifications. Are there a couple of White guys that are more qualified than Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio that were passed over so the crew wouldn’t be all White guys? We don’t know but even under Trump 2.0 that is not out of the realm of possibility.

Anyway, when you do a search for NASA most of the “news” results look something like this:

NASA defends Artemis III crew as critics question all-male lineup

Well of course and good for NASA not choosing a chick just to placate the crowd, although like I said they wouldn’t be happy unless the entire crew was female.

A NASA administrator is responding to criticism that its recently announced crew for Artemis III doesn’t include any women, despite its designation as the “twin sister” of the Apollo missions.

Following the space agency’s crew announcement June 9, reactions came in from high-profile women across the industry, including a science TV host and a cosmic influencer and commentator with more than 5 million followers on social media.

In a lengthy post to X, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said he had “seen the reactions ranging from disappointment to outrage.” He added, “We have an extraordinary astronaut corps, and every mission and every crew is part of a larger campaign to get America back to the Moon and to build the future we all dreamed about as children.”

I assume he posted his response and then turned off his notifications because I guarantee the replies are full of screeching harpies.

This chick was highlighted in the story, calling herself “Astro Alexandra Space Communicator” and describes herself as a “Comms Specialist and STEM/Space Influencer”. Pro-tip anyone describing themself as an “influencer” is almost certainly a narcissist, sociopath or retard (or some combination thereof).

These broads are all mad because everyone knows that the presence of at least one uterus is critical to mission success and basically they are demanding that women be given a place on this mission, over men who are more qualified, strictly on the basis of identity. In an HR department that sort of crap can make life miserable, on a spaceflight it can be lethal.

Still, when the final crew for Artemis IV is announced, the mission supposedly returning to a manned landing of the moon, you can be sure a woman will be in the crew and celebrated for some enormous accomplishment by riding the coattails of the White men that made it possible in the first place.

*(For purposes of this post we are assuming that NASA is telling the truth about all this, the point of the post isn’t really about space travel. Thanks in advance.)