NASA picks Starship to return to the Moon

In April 2021, NASA selected SpaceX's Starship as the Human Landing System for its Artemis program — the spacecraft that will carry astronauts from lunar orbit down to the surface of the Moon for the first time since 1972. The initial fixed-price award was about $2.89 billion, and in November 2022 NASA exercised an option worth roughly $1.15 billion for a second crewed landing.

NASA's choice was a striking vote of confidence: out of competing proposals, the agency entrusted the most important element of America's return to the Moon to a company that, two decades earlier, had not launched a single rocket.

The decision tied the Artemis program's success to Starship's development. It also reflected the same logic that has driven NASA's commercial partnerships throughout the 2010s — that SpaceX could deliver more capability for less money than traditional, cost-plus alternatives.