SpaceX will not be ready in time - it could be ready in 15 years or so. Getting a lunar lander man-rated and certified will take 7 years on the fast track, if there were on built now, and that would have to be after it passed its design review, which takes years more.
Only the Alpaca has passed its design review. And now NASA has put the lander contract out for bids. SpaceX is not even in the running. There are simply too many hurdles for SpaceX to get man-rated for either the Starship or its non-existent lunar lander - that’s if Musk was focused on the Moon, which he is not. Mars is his goal, the Moon is someone else’s problem; perhaps Blue Origin & Blue Moon will succeed.
Further, StarShip itself landing on the Moon has many, many problems, not the least is, it is top heavy and prone to fall over on the rough, rocky, boulder-strewn surface.
NASA will have to find another provider to replace StarShip, as it has not even reached v3, let alone the v4 version needed for the lunar mission. Both those versions have yet to be tested, plus demonstrate refueling in space, pass design review, become man-rated and certified. Not something that will happen on 5 years, or even 10.
The Chinese, if they get their stuff together and they, unlike NASA and SpaceX, are focused on the Moon, hitting all their goals on time, will be there long before the current NASA lunar mess is sorted. They will claim & colonize the best landing spots around the Lunar South pole, and as much territory as they deem in their interests - with all the associated minerals.
“To return Americans to the Moon, SpaceX aligned Starship development along two paths: development of the core Starship system and supporting infrastructure, including production facilities, test facilities, and launch sites — which SpaceX is self-funding representing over 90% of system costs — and development of the HLS-specific Starship configuration, which leverages and modifies the core vehicle capability to support NASA’s requirements for landing crew on and returning them from the Moon. SpaceX is working under a fixed-price contract with NASA, ensuring that the company is only paid after the successful completion of progress milestones, and American taxpayers are not on the hook for increased SpaceX costs.”
totally unfair business practices: they’ll drive every other government contractor out of the business if they keep that up ...
