Utee, I'm sure your friend at NASA believes in what they are doing but at this point NASA is just another bloated bureaucracy that is stuck in the past with way too many employees and way too much money. The joke is, what do you get when you give a team of engineers an unlimited budget and no deadline? Answer: Nothing. Which has been mostly true.
Space X will have SS operational before Artemis III, and maybe even before Artemis II is ready. What's to stop them from making a landing attempt, even if unmanned, on the moon? Why would NASA pay billions to launch SLS+Orion only to be unable to land on the moon without SS, when SS doesn't need SLS or Orion? SS can 100% do the job without SLS, but SLS cannot do anything outside of orbit the moon.
Elon has stated several times that the only reasons Space X exists is to make humans multiplanetary. SS is designed to go to Mars from the get-go. Yes, there are technology hurdles that will have to be conquered before humans can land on Mars with SS, but we are getting there quickly.
Earth to Mars has a transit window every two years. I believe that this year was the last window, the next won't be until 2024. A lot of people believe that Elon will at the very least have SS operational enough to fly one to Mars unmanned, loaded with supplies. Which leaves 2026 as the earliest a SS can make the trip to Mars manned. It may not happen until 2028, or possibly even 2030.
Either way it's a lot of excitement and will be a good thing for the US of A.
It's weird to me that a lot of thing have been happening with regards to space, but very few people realize it. Most don't even know that that US added another branch to the military (Trump did something right) called the USSF, or United States Space Force.