- The reason that NASA is stuck in this mess with Musk is that "their own" SLS, Orion, Lunar Gateway, & Co. program is a landfill of Congressional pork, trying to pretend to be a moon mission. And Washington has been talking smack about actually returning to the moon. And now China appears to be calling them on that cheap talk.

- Compared to the costs of SLS & Co., SpaceX's "one of his largest ever" contract for getting to the moon is small change. Has the NYT heard the old saying about "fast, cheap, and reliable"?

- Any manned Lunar mission must start with heavy lift to LEO. SpaceX utterly dominates that market. And has for years. On all 3 of the available, cheap, and reliable dimensions. Even if Starship could only do unmanned heavy LEO, having it operational would just make Musk an even-more obvious choice for that part of things.

- Musk has an available, reliable crew capsule - which is another difficult must-have for any manned Lunar mission. Vs. NASA's Orion capsule has been to orbit once, uncrewed, 3 year ago. And had major heat shield issues during the reentry.