"... the space agency awards a contract to build a second spacecraft — a deal that would likely go to Bezos’ Blue Origin space flight company.
In April, NASA awarded a $2.9 billion contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop a lander as part of its effort to return astronauts to the moon by 2024. Blue Origin accused NASA of a 'flawed acquisition' that 'endangers America’s return to the moon' and filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office.
If the Endless Frontier Act becomes law, the amendment... would give Blue Origin a second chance at snagging a NASA contract..."
ADDED: Wince emails this amazingly apt clip from the movie "Contact" with the line: "First rule in government spending: why build one when you can have two at twice the price?"
They should be calling it the 'Endless Grift Act'.
Elon Musk's SpaceX won the contract with NASA because they know what they're doing, are years ahead of anyone else (including NASA) and just keep producing. For example, the Falcon 9 rocket just completed its 100th successful launch. 100! That was SpaceX's 16th launch of 2021- a rocket sent up every 9 days. It was their 6th launch in the last 33 days, or one every five days.
Blue Origin, in the meantime, is still working out the kinks on it's New Shepard rocket and is advertising that they're very close to sending up a human in this ship. Well good.
Since when does one get rewarded for just showing up? I guess everyone does these days. Especially when you're the 2nd wealthiest man in the world and need all the extra help you can get. I mean, do you expect Jeff Bezos to make it on merit? That's just not fair. He's in such an unfortunate position to compete with SpaceX who clearly got a large head start.
Elon Musk and his SpaceX team are working hard and rapidly on deploying low earth orbit satellites to create a web of a fast, globally accessible internet. It will change how we get connected and allow those who don't have a connection to have a low cost, efficient internet. Bezos is working hard on lobbying the US Congress for money and favors.
To quote an old sage: Our country is in the very best of hands.
Bezos suing over the moon lander contract is genuine chutzpah. This is the 2nd time one of his companies has sued the government for not winning a contract. The first was over the Pentagon rewarding the JEDI contract to Microsoft over AWS. AWS was considered the likely winner by the analysts so when MS won, Bezos decided something must be afoot. The idea is that Trump intervened because one of the wealthiest people in the world also happens to own one of the most influential media companies in the world (Washington Post) which had not been friendly to Trump. Since that contract was supposed to lead to a major overhaul of the DoD IT infrastructure, the lawsuit is holding up innovation. But, it's possible he may have a case if Trump did intervene for purely political purposes.
But, this moon lander thing is ridiculous. Blue Origin was founded two years BEFORE SpaceX. And in those 20 years Blue Origin has....ran test flights. They have spent 20 years prototyping which is a feat only possible due to the deep pockets of Bezos. Meanwhile SpaceX is rapidly commoditizing space launch economics and delivering actual product.
We do need competition in space and it speaks to the pork barrel rot of NASA and their traditional allies (Boeing and Lockheed), never mind the Russians, that Musk so easily lapped the field in less than 20 years. The lesson one would think, would be not to solve that problem with what amounts to throwing more pork at the problem.
Side note: when do we treat seriously the clear conflict of interest of Bezos owning the Washington Post and a streaming service with more than a little politicized content (and a censorious hand) while his other companies compete for government contracts?
"From the post and from the first comment, I'm guessing that you have a wrong picture. The original plan was to have at least two space companies available to provide the service they needed. But a lot of Congressmen meddle in NASA's business and earmark money very specifically to go for this or for that, so that their state or whatever gets its share. The result here is that the money for this particular project got cut drastically. NASA decided that they couldn't afford to pay two space companies to do it, so they picked the one with the best record. Which is actually probably fine, as SpaceX is reliable, but it wasn't the way they thought was best to do it. Just the only way they could afford. It might not be a bad idea to fix it. Congress should do a lot less micro-managing of NASA."
Bezos is getting his ass kicked by Musk in the space race, so he calls on his DC buddies to bail him out, using the veiled threat of the 'Post' as a tool of persuasion...
If I had a list of favorite billionaires, Bezos would be way down toward the bottom.
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Temujin writes:
They should be calling it the 'Endless Grift Act'.
Elon Musk's SpaceX won the contract with NASA because they know what they're doing, are years ahead of anyone else (including NASA) and just keep producing. For example, the Falcon 9 rocket just completed its 100th successful launch. 100! That was SpaceX's 16th launch of 2021- a rocket sent up every 9 days. It was their 6th launch in the last 33 days, or one every five days.
Blue Origin, in the meantime, is still working out the kinks on it's New Shepard rocket and is advertising that they're very close to sending up a human in this ship. Well good.
Since when does one get rewarded for just showing up? I guess everyone does these days. Especially when you're the 2nd wealthiest man in the world and need all the extra help you can get. I mean, do you expect Jeff Bezos to make it on merit? That's just not fair. He's in such an unfortunate position to compete with SpaceX who clearly got a large head start.
Elon Musk and his SpaceX team are working hard and rapidly on deploying low earth orbit satellites to create a web of a fast, globally accessible internet. It will change how we get connected and allow those who don't have a connection to have a low cost, efficient internet. Bezos is working hard on lobbying the US Congress for money and favors.
To quote an old sage: Our country is in the very best of hands.
Russell writes:
Bezos suing over the moon lander contract is genuine chutzpah. This is the 2nd time one of his companies has sued the government for not winning a contract. The first was over the Pentagon rewarding the JEDI contract to Microsoft over AWS. AWS was considered the likely winner by the analysts so when MS won, Bezos decided something must be afoot. The idea is that Trump intervened because one of the wealthiest people in the world also happens to own one of the most influential media companies in the world (Washington Post) which had not been friendly to Trump. Since that contract was supposed to lead to a major overhaul of the DoD IT infrastructure, the lawsuit is holding up innovation. But, it's possible he may have a case if Trump did intervene for purely political purposes.
But, this moon lander thing is ridiculous. Blue Origin was founded two years BEFORE SpaceX. And in those 20 years Blue Origin has....ran test flights. They have spent 20 years prototyping which is a feat only possible due to the deep pockets of Bezos. Meanwhile SpaceX is rapidly commoditizing space launch economics and delivering actual product.
We do need competition in space and it speaks to the pork barrel rot of NASA and their traditional allies (Boeing and Lockheed), never mind the Russians, that Musk so easily lapped the field in less than 20 years. The lesson one would think, would be not to solve that problem with what amounts to throwing more pork at the problem.
Side note: when do we treat seriously the clear conflict of interest of Bezos owning the Washington Post and a streaming service with more than a little politicized content (and a censorious hand) while his other companies compete for government contracts?
MikeR writes:
"From the post and from the first comment, I'm guessing that you have a wrong picture. The original plan was to have at least two space companies available to provide the service they needed. But a lot of Congressmen meddle in NASA's business and earmark money very specifically to go for this or for that, so that their state or whatever gets its share. The result here is that the money for this particular project got cut drastically. NASA decided that they couldn't afford to pay two space companies to do it, so they picked the one with the best record.
Which is actually probably fine, as SpaceX is reliable, but it wasn't the way they thought was best to do it. Just the only way they could afford. It might not be a bad idea to fix it. Congress should do a lot less micro-managing of NASA."
Joe writes:
...and the richest get even richer.
Bezos is getting his ass kicked by Musk in the space race, so he calls on his DC buddies to bail him out, using the veiled threat of the 'Post' as a tool of persuasion...
If I had a list of favorite billionaires, Bezos would be way down toward the bottom.
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