> So four people would arrive at Lunar orbit in an Orion, board a huge prepositioned Starship, and fly that down to the surface?

That's the idea, yes. [1]

1. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/13/20...

Because the SLS can't do anything close to what the Saturn V did, yup.

Unfortunately Orion is stupidly heavy.

Is that in addition to taking a pit stop at the lunar gateway?

That's where they transition from one to the other, yeah.

The eventual plan is to build an orbiting space station, the Lunar Gateway. Astronauts will then launch on SLS/Orion, which will perform a Trans Lunar Injection.

However, before that, a Starship will be launched into LEO. There will then be something like 17 (the actual number is not clear, but it is a lot) Starship tankers that will launch to re-fuel the original Starship.

The Starship then does a Trans Lunar Injection. The Orion docks with the Lunar Gateway, Starship docks with the Lunar Gateway, the astronauts transition to Starship, which does a propulsive landing on the moon.

More precisely, those ~17 ships will fill a propellant depot ship, and once that is done, they can launch the HLS ship, that will then be filled with propellant from the propellant depot.