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NASA

Bezos' Blue Origin Protests NASA Awarding Astronaut Lunar Lander Contract To Musk's SpaceX (cnbc.com) 162

Posted by BeauHD from the sore-loser dept.
"Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin filed a protest with the Government Accountability Office against NASA on Monday, challenging the space agency's award of a nearly $3 billion moon lander contract to Elon Musk's SpaceX earlier this month," reports CNBC. In response, Musk teased on Twitter that Bezos couldn't "get it up (to orbit)." From the report: SpaceX, in a competition against Blue Origin and Leidos' subsidiary Dynetics, was awarded $2.89 billion for NASA's Human Landing System program. The HLS program is focused on building a lunar lander that can carry astronauts to the moon's surface under NASA's Artemis missions. For HLS, SpaceX bid a variation of its Starship rocket, prototypes of which the company has been testing at its facility in Texas. NASA was previously expected to choose two of the three teams to competitively build lunar landers, making the sole selection of SpaceX a surprise given the agency's prior goals for the program to continue to be a competition.

Blue Origin decried the award as "flawed" in a statement to CNBC, saying that NASA "moved the goalposts at the last minute." "In NASA's own words, it has made a 'high risk' selection. Their decision eliminates opportunities for competition, significantly narrows the supply base, and not only delays, but also endangers America's return to the Moon. Because of that, we've filed a protest with the GAO," Blue Origin said. Blue Origin revealed that NASA evaluated the company's HLS proposal to cost $5.99 billion, or roughly twice that of SpaceX. The company argued in its protest filing that NASA's cost for funding both proposals would have been under $9 billion -- or near how much the agency spent for SpaceX and Boeing to develop competing astronaut capsules under the Commercial Crew program.

First, Bezos' company said NASA did not give SpaceX's competitors an opportunity to "meaningfully compete" after "the agency's requirements changed due to its undisclosed, perceived shortfall of funding" for the HLS program. Second and third, Blue Origin said that NASA's acquisition was flawed under the agency's acquisition rules and its evaluation of the company's proposal "unreasonable." Fourth, the company asserted that NASA "improperly and disparately" evaluated SpaceX's proposal. And finally, Blue Origin said that NASA's evaluation of the proposals changed the weight it gave to key criteria, making price "the most important factor because of perceived funding limitations."
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Bezos' Blue Origin Protests NASA Awarding Astronaut Lunar Lander Contract To Musk's SpaceX More

Bezos' Blue Origin Protests NASA Awarding Astronaut Lunar Lander Contract To Musk's SpaceX

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  • Such wonder (Score:5, Interesting)

    by slack_justyb ( 862874 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @02:11AM (#61318388)

    Nothing like two insanely rich men having a dick waving smack down on the Internet about who will get to spend taxpayers' money.

    And don't get me wrong. Nothing wrong with NASA wanting to return to the moon or SpaceX getting the contract or what not, just it's mildly amusing the level of mental adolescence going into some billionaire making erection jokes for the entire planet to see. I'm actually shocked that Musk stopped at that and didn't go into you mama so fat jokes with the punchline being something about orbits around her or being mistaken for a planetary object.

    Truly a time to be alive, I guess.

    • Re:Such wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Forty Two Tenfold ( 1134125 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @02:16AM (#61318394)
      I wonder on what grounds does Bezos regards BO as competition to SpaceX.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by vlad30 ( 44644 )

        I wonder on what grounds does Bezos regards BO as competition to SpaceX.

        To easy

        "Jeff your BO stinks"

      • I wonder on what grounds does Bezos regards BO as competition to SpaceX.

        Well, unless Blue Origin refers to a new type of Amazon Basics toilet bowl cleaner, I'm pretty sure Bezos meant for that company to:

        "Blue's part in this journey is building a road to space with our reusable launch vehicles, so our children can build the future."

        From the competitive standpoint of winning multi-billion dollar government contracts, that sure smells a lot like SpaceX...

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          Every target they've managed to meet to date has only been sub-orbital, while their unmet promises and timelines are many. Perhaps NASA believes that B.O. can't be relied upon to deliver a successful moon landing program.

        • Re:Such wonder (Score:5, Insightful)

          by bill_mcgonigle ( 4333 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @06:38AM (#61318830) Homepage Journal

          > From the competitive standpoint of winning multi-billion dollar government contracts, that sure smells a lot like SpaceX...

          SpaceX has put many rockets into space and spent seven years getting human spaceflight correct. BO has put zero rockets into space.

          BO isn't even a space-rocket company, much less competitive. Sure, they would like to some day, if their wishes come true, but nobody wins a contrac on that basis without significant corruption or desperation at play.

          SpaceX needs competition but at this point it's more likely to come from Rocket Lab than BO or ULA.

      • consider.
        for the amounts of money involved.
        bezos could fund a viable lunar colony

    • Re:Such wonder (Score:5, Funny)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @02:32AM (#61318416)

      I'm actually shocked that Musk stopped at that and didn't go into you mama so fat jokes with the punchline being something about orbits

      Yo' momma's so fat, last time she wore a glitter dress, the Hubble Space Telescope thought it had discovered a new galaxy.

      Yo' momma's so fat, you can see what's behind her due to gravitational lensing.

      Yo' mamma's so fat, she sat on a binary tree and flattened it to a linked list in constant time.

      Yo' momma's so fat, she creates non-Euclidean triangles of more than 180 degrees.

      Yo' momma's file system is FAT32!

      Yo' momma's so fat, she emits Hawking Radiation.

      Select * FROM Table.YoMamma .... Server Timed Out

    • He may yet still call Bezos pedo-guy.

    • I'm actually shocked that Musk stopped at that and didn't go into you mama so fat jokes with the punchline being something about orbits around her or being mistaken for a planetary object.

      Uh, you might want to hold off on assuming.

      We haven't heard the response yet from the other dick-waiving child in the room.

    • For me, the erection jokes are just icing on the already pretty sweet 'back to the moon for three billion not nine' cake.

      That said, If Bezos wants to spend 5% of his own wealth to build a prototype lander, NASA should give it a chance. I'm just not into the idea of spending nine billion tax dollars to buy two things when we are only going to use one of them. That would not be responsible stewardship of my money.

      • I'm just not into the idea of spending nine billion tax dollars to buy two things when we are only going to use one of them.

        That's called competition.

        The problem is that Bezos wants a multi-billion dollar contract from the US taxpayer so he can fail to produce a sufficiently competitive product for NASA, and believes he can use the American judicial system to coerce the money out of the American taxpayer. Either contract can be structured so that the loser can lose billions of dollars if they do not win the final product selection. Bezos probably doesn't have the balls to risk his money on it, but would be perfectly comfortabl

    • Yo mama's so fat, she can connect to three Starlink satellites at once.

  • Ok, how about they put a meaningful effort in building rockets? SpaceXâ(TM)s track record is miles ahead of Blue Originâ(TM)s. Split the 2.3 billion two or three ways and nobody will get there. You canâ(TM)t make a human rated rocket for a mere $1 billion. It costs Boeing or Airbus close to $10 billion to develop a new airplane certified as safe. Why would a rocket necessarily cost less, it too needs the same or more testing and development.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by ytene ( 4376651 )
      Not expressing a view on the BO challenge here.

      If you look at this from the NASA perspective, then, long-term, the best scenario for NASA would be to have at least 5 viable launch partners operating commercial programs from which the agency could purchase launch slots.

      I suggest five almost at random, on the basis that with less than 5 players in a market, it is far too easy to get either a wilful practice of "collaborative pricing", or excessive profiteering by the more competitive players, knowing th

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        The problem is a combination of (A) this is money that they simply didn't have, and (B) Blue Origin itself.

        In regards to the latter, it's easy to forget that Blue Origin is older than SpaceX and up until just recently better funded. Yet have achieved precious little. They don't function like Newspace; they function like New Oldspace. Heck, they literally partnered with Oldspace on their (very expensive) bid (probably to help diffuse how ridiculous it looks for a company that's never even been to orbit to be

        • It should be noted that a Lunar lander requires much less deltaV than is required to reach LEO. Less deltaV than Blue Origins has already demonstrated.

          Note, of course, that payload will be rather limited compared to Starship, so that may be a major factor.

          But if you're talking "land four astronauts, then take them back to Lunar Gateway", what they've already done would be sufficient in terms of performance....

        • Re:Meaningful? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by timholman ( 71886 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @07:33AM (#61318958)

          In regards to the latter, it's easy to forget that Blue Origin is older than SpaceX and up until just recently better funded. Yet have achieved precious little. They don't function like Newspace; they function like New Oldspace. Heck, they literally partnered with Oldspace on their (very expensive) bid (probably to help diffuse how ridiculous it looks for a company that's never even been to orbit to be demanding a moon lander contract)

          Your "Newspace" vs. "Oldspace" comparison is quite apt. SpaceX operates like a Silicon Valley startup, by hiring young idealistic engineers rather than rely on people trained in traditional aerospace firms.

          Just last week I heard a talk giving by a senior engineering manager at an Oldspace company (located not far from a SpaceX facility) and he made no attempt to hide his complete contempt for SpaceX. He talked about how they hired young engineers and burned them out with long working hours, and how their engineering approach was more of "trial and error" combined with "don't design in quality, test it in". He also made several snarky remarks about the recent explosion of the Starship test vehicle.

          And yet ... right now SpaceX has astronauts on the ISS after yet another successful launch of the Dragon spacecraft. Starlink is a functioning ISP that is rapidly expanding. And when I talk to students who are interested in aerospace as a career, their first choice for an employer isn't any of the Oldspace firms ... it's SpaceX. Elon Musk has won the hearts and minds of the current generation of young engineers, hands down.

          If Blue Origin plays the Oldspace game, they are doomed to irrelevance. Right now your average engineering student probably thinks that "Blue Origin" is some kind of detergent or floor wax.

        • I think NASA made the right call, but I'll still point out that Grumman had never built a spacecraft when they got the LM contract.

        • (probably to help diffuse how ridiculous it looks for a company that's never even been to orbit to be demanding a moon lander contract)

          You do not need to be an orbital launch provider to provide other components of space travel. That's a strange requirement.

          • But you are putting a rocket under that space capsule that has to successfully operate after smacking into the Moon first. You're not going to inspire confidence in a new product bid if you can't even engineer competitive products with your competitor. Hell, BO doesn't even have the working capsule docking with the ISS.

            • But you are putting a rocket under that space capsule that has to successfully operate after smacking into the Moon first. You're not going to inspire confidence in a new product bid if you can't even engineer competitive products with your competitor. Hell, BO doesn't even have the working capsule docking with the ISS.

              The National Team proposal did not require New Glenn to operational, and included partnerships with other firms, including Lockheed Martin and Grumman. Grumman, you may or may not recall, developed and built the Lunar Module for Apollo despite never putting rockets in orbit.

              There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical of Blue Origin's bid, but a lack of experience launching orbital rockets should not be one of them. Now, a history of being late on delivery, that's different.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by green1 ( 322787 )

            And the Wright brothers had never flown before they suddenly did either. Someone has to be first, but just because the first person was able to do it without past experience, doesn't mean you shouldn't favour past experience once it exists.

            You now have the choice of companies with a proven track record, why would you willingly choose someone who doesn't instead?

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by larwe ( 858929 )
        "NASA needs to have a vibrant, thriving launch market in the long term in order to secure the best deals for the tax-payer. "

        Needs? NASA has historically operated with closed contracts with a handful of aerospace majors, and the "deal" the taxpayer was getting only came into the conversation when they were negotiating their next round of funding. The mere idea of relinquishing so much control over the development process is already a radical departure from anything in NASA's history that it's hard to make

        • Re:Meaningful? (Score:5, Interesting)

          by ytene ( 4376651 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @04:52AM (#61318680)
          "Needs? NASA has historically operated with closed contracts with a handful of aerospace majors, and the "deal" the taxpayer was getting only came into the conversation when they were negotiating their next round of funding."

          And this is the problem.

          Up until recently we've had a long run of Senator Richard Shelby controlling the purse strings and that has perpetuated the insane procurement process that NASA follows - kick-backs for both states and contractors, funded from the public purse. Too soon to know what Patrick Leahy is going to do - if anything - but if they want to continue to be relevant long in to the 21st century, NASA need to re-think their approach.

          The traditional answer to the question, "Why does NASA build space rockets like Apollo and the Shuttle Orbiter" could reasonably be, "Because there is nobody else to do that commercially because there is no commercial market for going to the Moon or even to orbit on a regular basis". But that answer is no longer true. Look at the total annual cost of "putting stuff in space" and you will quickly see that the commercial market dwarfs NASA's budget. Does NASA need to keep on commissioning and building rocket systems when there are viable commercial alternatives? No.

          So with ever-tighter scrutiny on budgets, NASA could usefully re-focus their efforts on the payload and develop things like deep-space probes, planetary or lunar habitats, equipment to extract oxygen or fuel from environments, etc. These are things that scientific exploration is going to need well in advance of commercial application - there will be an interest in a scientific expedition to Mars, for example, long before it becomes commercially advantageous to send people there for industrial/business reasons.

          If a miracle happened and NASA were to cancel SLS today [no, it won't happen, this is just for example] then would I support the design and development of a new NASA rocket? No way. Would I instead take say 25-50% of that and invest it as seed capital to encourage commercial partners to develop their technology to meet my requirements? Hell yes.

          NASA needs to be at the cutting edge of science. Not competing with commercial players in what is fast-becoming a commodity market. And I've said this in a previous post, but I think it bears repeating... The cost of a Shuttle Orbiter launch, when the vehicle was still flying, was "at least one billion dollars", and that was in tax dollars at the time, not inflation-adjusted. We know that Falcon Heavy can deliver roughly twice the payload to a like-for-like orbit, for roughly one tenth of the cost (if you accept the SpaceX launch cost at $100MM - it may go down if you were to block buy 10 launches). I know this cost-comparison isn't viable [because it doesn't factor design and fabrication costs] but just think what NASA could put in orbit, today, if they "re-spent" the same amount that they invested in ISS. Wikipedia claims the cost for the ISS at $150 billion - I think that's a bit high and likely includes running costs - but say you only put 10x as much into orbit instead of the 20x smaller cost of SpaceX launches [and spent the difference on building more modules] then just think what you'd get!

          On what planet [oh, wait] can NASA possibly justify continuing to do things that commercial companies can already deliver in a "better for less" model?

          The answer is that it only ever made sense seen through the lens of pork-barrel politics. Time to move on past that.
      • I somewhat disagree with this.
        The entire NASA infrastructure is aimed at providing services aimed at getting cargo and astronauts to the moon at a cost of about $6 million per kg.
        ($60B program cost, a dozen or so missions with under a ton of payload.).
        Nothing NASA has ever put into orbit that I can find ever costs under the price of gold. ($25K/kg). (including off-the-shelf inkjet printers)
        To hit half of this ($12K/kg to the lunar surface), if on-orbit fuelling works, and starship hits its goals, would requ

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by green1 ( 322787 )

          I think you've misinterpreted NASA's core mission. Their primary purpose has absolutely nothing to do with space flight. NASA is a money distribution program. Why do you think that every NASA project has parts made in umpteen different far-flung regions? Why do you think their budgets are so much higher than companies like SpaceX for similar programs? The primary goal of NASA is to distribute tax payer dollars to influential companies in the regions of influential politicians.
          If they happen to do something

      • It always is for government contracting at this scale.

        What annoys me is being caught in a bind where the cost of developing a prototype for the government is so high that bidding companies can't risk the investment without some guarantee of a return, so we (taxpayers) have to cover the costs of multiple companies to produce multiple prototypes, only one of which we will keep.

        In this specific case, that isn't even true. Bezos can afford to risk $6 billion, it's 5% of his current net wealth. SpaceX cou

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by ytene ( 4376651 )
          I agree with you, but then the government rarely does itself any favors.

          I know that "you can't cross a chasm in two small steps", but I do find myself thinking that there must be ways that NASA could continue to evolve their technology and capabilities without having to attempt to take such vast steps forward that they set themselves up for these cost-plus contracts without even trying.

          It would be inaccurate and unfair to say that SpaceX developed FH without government funding... but what is elegant a

          • Re:Meaningful? (Score:5, Insightful)

            by slashdot_commentator ( 444053 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @10:37AM (#61319688) Journal

            they set themselves up for these cost-plus contracts without even trying.

            The lunar lander isn't a cost-plus contract. Musk is going to eat a lot money if he can't deliver a product to NASA's specification. What Bezos wants is a cost plus contract for a lander he doesn't want to take a loss on if he comes in second.

    • You can't make a human rated rocket for a mere $1 billion. It costs Boeing or Airbus close to $10 billion to develop a new airplane certified as safe.

      I wont go into the details about the actual costs, but as a previous poster has mentioned, prices quoted might not be profitable, because of attempts to quell competition. Monopolies can pretty much do anything (this was how Bezos did with Amazon, so why shouldn't Musk try to do the same with spaceX ?).

      However, as for Boeing, I can tell you that there is a HUGE difference in "commercially safe" and "government wants it". Astronauts sign a long list of waivers before a flight, same as test pilots. Passengers

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Rei ( 128717 )

        The thing is, Musk could bid almost whatever he wanted on this because it's something he wants to do anyway. It's clear that he views the contract as just extra cash for developing Starship and an opportunity to fund additional launches to get the flight rate up (each Starship requires several refueling launches per trip)

        • It's clear that he views the contract as just extra cash for developing Starship

          This comment should be marked "insightful".

          In fact, Elon has rightfully pissed on Moon missions in the past, for being a waste of the NASA budget, who's spending should be focused on a manned Mars mission. But NASA gets its money from the American public. Their bosses (federal politicians) are too wedded to the notion we need to demonstrate an indefinite presence on the Moon before they're willing to spend money to go to Mars. So now Elon is happy to compete for Moon mission bids. NASA bids for "wastef

          • Re:Meaningful? (Score:5, Interesting)

            by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @12:57PM (#61320360)

            He also gets to access and leverage decades of NASA knowledge on life support and ancillary systems for Starship. NASA contributed quite a lot to Dragon 2 and even if there's a Starship orbiting the earth and landing later this year eventually they are going to have to turn that empty shell into a viable life supporting habitat. That could take far longer than the actual vehicle engineering and now they get access to everything NASA has learned on the ISS. If they put people on the moon a Mars landing contract from NASA is all but guaranteed.

      • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Boeing has about 15 times as many employees, and delivers about 16 times as many aircraft in a year as spaceX does.

        Yes, but Boeing's aircraft are fly-once-crash-once whereas SpaceX's rockets are reusable. I know which I'd rather use.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by Salgak1 ( 20136 )

        Boeing has about 15 times as many employees, and delivers about 16 times as many aircraft in a year as spaceX does.

        And as a former Boeing Employee, I can report that there is a **huge** overhead. Or at least there was 12 years ago: Three simultaneous manglement chains (Program, which made sense, HR, which was absentee and made less sense, and "Career Field", which made zero sense. Yet all three had to sign off on any action. Especially amusing when your Program chain is local, your HR chain is on the other coast, and your Career Field chain is 2 states away. . . ).

        Oh, and at least when I got laid off (2009), it was a

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hoofie ( 201045 )

          And look at the train wreck which is now Boeing. Cock-up after cock-up - with Aviation though people die.

          Boeing is riddled with Managers who think taking money and expertise out doesn't affect safety. After all, an MBA from Harvard trumps 20 years of experience in engineering airframes, avionics, propulsion !

      • A commercial passenger plane is expected to fly for more than 10 years.
        After that, it is transformed into a cargo plane and is expected to fly some more years.
        A reusable stage is expected to fly only about 10 times.

        Big difference...
        Not to mention that even the Boeing 737 Max (of recent fame) had a much higher flight safety record than any rocket (Soyuz, Saturn V, Falcon). It doesn't matter if it's per hour, per passenger, per flight...

    • Ok, how about they put a meaningful effort in building rockets? SpaceXâ(TM)s track record is miles ahead of Blue Originâ(TM)s. Split the 2.3 billion two or three ways and nobody will get there. You canâ(TM)t make a human rated rocket for a mere $1 billion.

      And I find it laughable that you assume either of these two entities are being held back by a lack of funds.

      Split 2.3 billion and the collective missions fail? I find that hard to believe over mere pocket change.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Entrope ( 68843 )

        Sen. Dirksen, your office is calling to ask whether you really said (about defense spending) "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money."

      • The way BO was approaching things is very very much 'old aerospace'. Subcontracting out critical parts of their design (this was called out as a risk in the bid response document), massive investment, ...
        It is quite likely they systemically cannot get it that cheap.

  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @02:20AM (#61318398)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re:Not surprising at all. (Score:5, Informative)

      by Insanity Defense ( 1232008 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @04:19AM (#61318626)

      NASA had 2 grounds at least to reject BO. 1/ Too expensive for the budget allocated for the mission. 2/ The bid was invalid as it required up front payments from NASA and that was not allowed in the bid proposal. So the bid itself was invalid.

      NASA had more reasons to accept the SpaceX proposal. 1/ Cheapest 2/ SpaceX was willing to adjust the payment plan to better fit the budget available to NASA. 3/ They actually have a prototype in advanced development unlike the competitors who at best had mock ups. 4/ The only one that could actually be used to build a Base on the Moon without costing the Moon. 5/ The only one that currently has a man rated spacecraft which shows that they can build to those standards.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ksevio ( 865461 )

        NASA also liked that the SpaceX design had extra capacity and things like airlocks that had life support

  • that neither Microsoft or Oracle has any current launch capacity, as far as I know.

    Because that's when Government "bidding" gets real, real, ugly.

    • “It looks like you’re launching a rocket!”

    • I wouldn't be so sure. What else is Larry doing out on that Hawaiian island he just moved to, if not building a "You Only Live Twice"-style volcano lair?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mattr ( 78516 )

      Larry Ellison who owns 1/3 of Oracle and was its CEO is on Tesla's board I believe. I can't find a link but IIRC there was an anecdote about a rocket he had (in the 90s maybe) which was aimed for Bill Gates.. not sure if the memory or anecdote is correct though.

  • NASA read thru Bezos. He was simply non-performative to NASA RFP.

  • The tax payers.
    Would they think it's reasonable to spend an extra $6 billion on top of $3 billion just so Mr Amazon doesn't feel left out cause Mr PayPal beat him

    • I don't. But then, I don't really think either needs an up-front payment in order to do the work. Bezos probably has $6 billion in his couch cushions, and SpaceX is probably building a lander anyway. I don't blame either for wanting me to cover the cost, but I still don't want to. I'm happy to pay for the finished product, but I'm unwilling to pay for two when we will only use one.

      • At very least, Bezos needs to put out a more competitive product. Musk is winning contracts with products that are delivering men to LEO and then the ISS. Blue Origin can't even get a rocket past 70 miles altitude, or a working manned capsule within months of Musk's Dragon capsule.

        Why on earth would I want to pay billions to subsidize a failure as competitor, when their track history has been failure? And then pay more for the failure's failed product, if only it could get past the testing stage?

  • Actual protest document (Score:5, Informative)

    by JoshuaZ ( 1134087 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @05:52AM (#61318744) Homepage

    The actual protest document is https://s3.amazonaws.com/images.spaceref.com/news/2021/BlueOriginProtest.pdf [amazonaws.com]. It makes for interesting reading. Some parts are well argued. They make a strong argument that a lot of the things listed as weaknesses in the source selection document were things NASA had already approved with no issues. However, there are a few other paragraphs like

    The Agency inexplicably and unreasonably determined the 33.5 feet height of the egress/ingress points of Blue Origin’s lander vehicle merited a weakness, while SpaceX’s lander vehicle with an egress/ingress point at 100 feet tall, merited a significant strength

    That's such a severe misconstruing of what the source selection said, that if I were the GAO, I'd be tempted to throw the whole protest in the trash over that.

    Overall, the whole thing is worth reading and makes me slightly more sympathetic to Blue. But it is a document written by their very high paid lawyers over at Barnes & Thornburg, so if it didn't have at least some of that impact, they'd be not doing their job.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I'm just amazed that they are still specifying stuff in feet.

    • That's such a severe misconstruing of what the source selection said, that if I were the GAO, I'd be tempted to throw the whole protest in the trash over that.

      For those of us who didn't read the source selection doc, would you mind expanding? Thanks.

      • The source selection document is here https://www.nasa.gov/sites/def... [nasa.gov] . If you don't want to read the whole selection document https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=50806.0;attach=2026912;image [nasaspaceflight.com] has a nice breakdown in a single page of the major plusses and minuses for each proposal.

        The short summary is that the significant strength for SpaceX was due to total mass and volume able to be delivered, not height. There was some initial concern about the height of the Blue Origin

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by jabuzz ( 182671 )

          From a tender prospective Blue Origin had a failure in wanting payment in advance of meeting milestone objectives. That is an immediate toss in the bin and an irretrievable problem with their tender response. Legally Nasa could not offer the contract to Blue Origin - period.

          Besides Blue Origin wanted more money than Nasa had so again an immediate toss. It is no good when Nasa put out a tender for $X for maned missions to the moon and you bid $Y where Y>X.

          The other thing to note is that Congress gave Nasa

        • Thanks!
      • Adding here since Slashdot doesn't have an edit function. In fairness to Blue, they do point out that they did add in an elevator system to their revised bid. (See page 41 of the protest). But since it didn't become enough to be a listed weakness in the protest document, just a point of concern, there's really no substance here.

  • Sorry Jeff.

    Not sorry, Jeff.

  • It's kind of unnecessarily large for the moon, but that advantage to move so much cargo would be a big deal if China and Russia get into it.
  • Bezos' companies seem to fail at winning government contracts then they throw lawyers at the problem. Sore loser, is the DOD AWS lawsuit over yet?

    -Bozo, Bezos - separated at birth?

    • Even with the slush fund of AWS at his disposal, Bezos can not bring a rocket in on time and on budget.

      Space X on the other had is build, launch, test, repeat.

  • Sore loser (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Third Position ( 1725934 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @07:36AM (#61318968)

    Although Musk would have done the same thing.

    • Although Musk would have done the same thing.

      If the loser never complained about these kinds of contracts, there would be far more corruption. Hopefully there was none here, but the 'sore loser' does serve a role.

  • I said it in the last thread (Score:5, Insightful)

    by thereddaikon ( 5795246 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @08:03AM (#61319038)

    and I'll repeat myself here. SpaceX were the only bidder who have successfully made and flown a man rated spacecraft in the last 30 years. That alone was reason enough to pick them. BO have spent a lot of time and money and all they have to show for it are a bunch of engines that haven't flown and a toy that can't reach orbit.

  • how many operational blue origin launches? (Score:3)

    by fygment ( 444210 ) on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @08:07AM (#61319056)

    any more questions?

  • A key factor of the plan SpaceX plan that I think is probably the most underrated factor in all of these discussions is the fact that they're *not* going to be trying to man-rate the Starship for this contract. The plan is to send a Lunar Starship into orbit autonomously, and then fly the *existing* and *already flying* Crew Dragon up to meet it. Once they return from the moon, they transfer back into the Crew Dragon for landing, which again it has done several times before. The risks of landing/launchin

  • Indeed! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) * on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @10:30AM (#61319646)

    The nerve of NASA to give business to a company that already started over a 100 rockets, 80 of them landed again at the same sport or on a robo-barge, launched over 1200 satellites and has working spaceships that can also be used again instead of giving it to him.

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