Can you reasonably do both storylines at once? If not, which is better? (minor SPOILERS for early in the game)

I just got this finally with the new update and sale, and I'm confused for lack of a better word on how to proceed. I would like to proceed with some of the Atlas stuff, I've gotten as far as meeting the two peeps in the orb station but the other quest line with Artemis seems VERY directed so far - meaning I can't just swan off to another system. I'm pretty early in the game, at the point where you have to...break into a place for someone so they can scan some things, to be a little vague.

I just get the feeling that the storyline overall would make more sense if you do the Atlas stuff first, but if not, I'm wondering if the Artemis path will take you really far off the Atlas path (as you can see in the galactic map with the red line) that it'll be frustrating. Does that make sense? On the other hand if doing that stuff will take you 10,000 LYs away from the Artemis locations, I suppose that's that - which is why it'd be nice if you can just say "ok I'll revisit that storyline, let me contact someone".

I suppose you could really simplify the question to "can I take a pause from Artemis stuff to free roam for who knows how long?", since that could also lead me to getting halfway around the galaxy before I realize it, and having to backtrack dozens of systems would be insane and very not fun (I'm enjoying cataloging as much as I can right now to make some money and wanted to spend a little time trying to complete all animals on a planet for the bonus).

I just had no idea how to find an answer to this, it's a pretty specific question for Google and since this new update has been out 3 or 4 days only, there's not going to be anything good indexed anyhow, I imagine.