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SpaceX’s Starship to return humanity to the Moon in stunning NASA decision
In one of the biggest NASA contracting surprises in years, the space agency has chosen SpaceX – and only SpaceX – to return humans to the surface of the Moon with its next-generation Starship rocket.
The Washington Post’s Christian Davenport broke the news a few hours before NASA’s scheduled announcement and teleconference, revealing that SpaceX beat out Dynetics and a Blue Origin-led “National Team” for a sole-source contract to build, launch, and land a custom version of Starship on the Moon for $2.89 billion. If that uncrewed testing is successful, SpaceX and Starship will be tasked with landing the first astronauts on the Moon in half a century as early as the in the mid-2020s.
While a Human Landing System (HLS) announcement was fully planned and expected to happen this month, virtually everyone following the process believed that NASA would continue to lean on the rationale behind selecting multiple providers for its Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) and Commercial Crew (CCP) programs. Having multiple distinct providers, spacecraft, and rockets available to accomplish the same tasks fundamentally insulates NASA (and the International Space Station that depends on those programs) from losing the ability to transport crew or cargo in the event that any one provider is delayed or suffers a major failure.
With a goal as complex as landing humans back on the Moon for the first time since the 1970s, redundancy and multiple distinct solutions would obviously be even more desirable. Entirely contrary to expectations, NASA instead announced that it had exclusively contracted with SpaceX alone for next phase of HLS development. Though SpaceX may have been the only competitor already testing something approximating real integrated flight hardware, NASA’s decision to sole-source HLS to Starship represents a significant gamble.
Simultaneously, though, the move is also extraordinarily pragmatic and indicates that one or several major decisionmakers at NASA have taken less positive lessons from its commercial cargo and crew programs to heart. Crucially, over the first several years of the Commercial Crew Program (CCP), Congress systematically underfunded the development of two commercial crew spacecraft – one from Boeing and the other from SpaceX. As a direct result, the launch debuts of both spacecraft were delayed by several years, forcing NASA to to continue relying on Russian Soyuz launches well into the 2020s to get its astronauts to the ISS.
Additionally, SpaceX – an unequivocal underdog and newbie next to Boeing in the mid-2010s – has drastically outperformed its traditional aerospace counterpart, beating Boeing to the punch and launching astronauts first. Boeing’s Starliner is now at least 18 months behind Crew Dragon despite costing almost 60% more.
In its first year on the books, almost mirroring NASA’s Commercial Crew experience, Congress aggressively underfunded the HLS program, allotting $850M – just 25% – of the $3.4B NASA requested. In other words, NASA seems to be proceeding with HLS under the assumption that Congress – as it did with CCP – will continue to chronically underfund the lunar lander program for years to come. If that’s the case, NASA appears to have made an uncharacteristically astute decision to structure HLS not on its preferred budget – but on what the agency believes Congress will pony up.
Put in a slightly different way, NASA is basically telling Congress that its lack of commitment has forced the agency to sole-source its lunar lander contract to SpaceX, putting the impetus on Congress to properly fund the HLS program if it wants redundant providers. All told, while NASA is undoubtedly taking a risk selecting SpaceX and Starship to return both it and humanity to the Moon, the space agency has now made it abundantly clear that it’s fully committed to the program and goal, whether or not Congress is willing to do its job.
Ferrari unveiled its Luce EV over the weekend, and so far, its reception has been an absolute disaster, gathering negative reactions from a wide variety of people, including former executives.
The stock even took a hit on its first day of trading following the unveiling, dropping over 7 percent at one point.
Ferrari moving to EVs from its traditional V12s and mid-engine sports cars is a massive move. It was designed by Sir Jony Ive and Marc Newsom’s LoveFrom studio, which is known for design work for tech giant Apple. “Luce” means “light” in Italian, so Ferrari drew inspiration for its name from its sleek design, characterized by a smooth, sculpted body with rounded edges.
But its reception has been far from what Ferrari expected. The overall design has drawn some harsh criticism since its reveal, and it is simply stunning that such a storied company, with a rich history of beautiful, powerful cars has revealed a design that many are not a fan of.
Ferrari unveiled its all-electric Luce over the weekend, and it has truly gotten some attention…not for the right reasons.
From an Italian legend that has built some beautiful cars in its history, this almost feels like a ploy to inevitably cancel its electric program. pic.twitter.com/rczSSb3pJx
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 26, 2026
Responses to the design were widely negative, with some saying, “Enzo is rolling in his grave,” and “This looks like a Nissan LEAF with a bad body kit.”
Former Ferrari Chairman Luca di Montezemolo said:
“If I said what I really think, I’d harm Ferrari. We’re risking the destruction of a myth, I’m very sorry about that. I hope they at least remove the Prancing Horse from that car.”
🚨 Luca di Montezemolo former Ferrari chairman reacts to the new electric Ferrari Luce:
“I’ve seen the project has already been delayed more than two years. I don’t like commenting from the stands—when I was in the game, it annoyed me when people did that. I think for now the… https://t.co/TzIDxFzHso
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 26, 2026
Ferrari has scaled back EV commitments in the past, primarily in response to weaker-than-expected demand for its electric powertrains.
Priced at roughly $640,000 in the U.S., it is tough to see how this car will ever truly live up to the massive expectations many had for it. It almost feels like, to a certain extent, Ferrari is looking for a way to get out of building EVs.
Tesla unveiled a juicy new detail on the Roadster, its long-delayed supercar project, and additionally hinted at a new unveiling timeline, as it appears yet another month will pass without seeing the capabilities of the vehicle.
Vice President of Vehicle Engineering at Tesla, Lars Moravy, revealed on the Ride the Lightning podcast that the Roadster will be built at Gigafactory Texas, adding that “you’ll start to see a lot of things unfold in the next months.”
While we get a good detail on the plant of manufacture, we also get another letdown, as it appears the unveiling event will not take place in May, as CEO Elon Musk hinted during the Earnings Call.
Franz von Holzhausen revealed in the Ride the Lightning podcast that the Tesla Roadster will be built at Gigafactory Texas https://t.co/t9Bu9k824Q pic.twitter.com/TT01IWJaFD
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) May 24, 2026
The Roadster was first unveiled back in 2017, alongside the Semi, which entered production earlier this year. It was Tesla’s attempt at a true supercar; it would be rare, expensive, and lightning quick, among other incredible capabilities, like potentially hovering for a short period thanks to a collaboration project with SpaceX.
However, the vehicle was set to be delivered in 2020. Parts and supply chain issues due to the COVID-19 pandemic started these delays, and since then, Tesla, and specifically Musk, have wanted to push the capabilities of the Roadster to somewhere the human mind may not be able to currently comprehend.
Both Chief Designer Franz von Holzhausen and Moravy have said many things about the Roadster over the past few years, hinting that the car truly could be worth the wait. However, the continuous delays we’ve seen have undoubtedly been discouraging.
With that being said, it’s not like Tesla has been doing nothing. Instead, the company has been focusing on revamping current models, phasing out others, and working on developing the cars of the future, specifically, the Cybercab, which entered production at Giga Texas in April.
Despite the Roadster’s delays, there is still a ton of anticipation for the vehicle to be released. It will have a steering wheel, as Musk said it will be “the best of the last of the human-driven cars.”
NASA has filed a procurement notice announcing its intent to add six post-certification missions to SpaceX’s existing Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contract. The agency said it would order up to three of those missions immediately upon adding them to the contract, with the remaining three available as needed through the end of the International Space Station’s planned operations in 2030.
The reason for the expansion is straightforward. NASA cited recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable crew transportation capability as the driving factors behind the decision. Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner has still not been certified for crewed flights, and a cargo-only Starliner mission was not included on NASA’s most recent mission manifest. With Boeing effectively sidelined for the foreseeable future, SpaceX is the only American company capable of rotating crews to the station.
The history behind this contract tells the fuller story of how SpaceX got here. NASA originally awarded SpaceX its Commercial Crew contract in 2014 for $2.6 billion. In 2022 NASA modified the contract to add five missions covering Crew-10 through Crew-14, worth $1.436 billion, bringing the total contract value at that point to $4.9 billion. The recent May 18 filing by NASA extends that runway further, with Crew-12 currently docked at the station and Crew-13 assigned and targeting a mid-September 2026 launch.
According to a report by SpaceNews, NASA stated in its filing: “It is necessary to award additional PCMs to SpaceX given the recently shortened ISS mission durations, technical issues and schedule delays encountered by Boeing, the allocation of missions between Boeing and SpaceX, NASA’s projections for when an alternative crew transportation system may become available, and the ongoing technical challenges of maintaining a reliable capability for crewed flights to ISS.”
No dollar value for the new six missions has been publicly confirmed yet, but based on the 2022 precedent of roughly $287 million per mission, the new block could represent close to $1.7 billion in additional contract value. With SpaceX simultaneously preparing Starship as NASA’s Artemis lunar lander, filing its S-1 for a June IPO, and now absorbing more ISS crew rotation work, the company’s role as the primary contractor for American human spaceflight is no longer a matter of circumstance. It is NASA policy.
Ferrari unveils its Luce EV, and its reception has been a disaster
Tesla unveils juicy new detail on the Roadster and hints at new unveil timeline
