NASA selects SpaceX as its sole provider for a lunar lander

No moon for you, Bezos.

NASA said it will award SpaceX $2.89 billion for development of the Starship vehicle and two flights. One of these missions will be an uncrewed flight test of Starship down to the lunar surface and back. The second mission will be a crewed flight—the first one of the Artemis program—down to the Moon.

Artemis is the NASA program that has been reliant upon the SLS. But by going with a Starship derivative… will SLS still be relevant? The plan apparently is to launch the Starship to lunar orbit unmanned, there to rendezvous with an SLS-launched Orion capsule to transfer crew over. But… if SpaceX has the ability to get a Starship to the moon, seems like they’ll have the ability to get at least a Dragon capsule there and back. I wonder what the payload capability would be for an Earth-to-lunar-orbit-to-Earth Starship might be given LEO refueling. Perhaps such a vehicle could send a couple dozen people to lunar orbit there to meet up with the Starship lunar lander; transfer four or five tot he lander and the rest stay in the transfer Starship, there to play tourist and pay for the trip.