Boeing crony capitalist crap. Go Spacex!
Yup, Elon will probably beat them just like he did with sending people to the ISS. He’ll do it cheaper too since he reuses his components.
Let’s see bloated Boeing or NASA do this; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ackZ-Ei4JB8 (0:35 second video)
Totally agree about SpaceX.
The upper stage of Starship (wish it had been called something else, but whatever...) is already doing test flights, flying with three engines. The final configuration will be six.
The first stage will use around 30 of the same engines, developing somewhere around 15 million pounds of thrust. That’s about three times the Saturn V first stage, powered by liquid methane and liquid oxygen.
The overall system will get 100 tons to low Earth orbit, and then the same 100 tons to the Moon using in-orbit refueling.
A single 100 ton payload could put a world-class telescope on site at our lunar base at the lunar south pole. Two of them would allow the use of interferometry, giving effective resolution of the distance between the two instruments.
The lunar south pole is worth competing over, it has perpetual sunlight available as well as, more importantly, a surprising amount of water.
It is all worth doing, as the available resources and wealth to be had beyond Earth are almost incomprehensible. The entire Solar System can fairly easily be opened up to humanity, and living on the Moon is the first step!