![]() ![]() In his open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson today, Bezos offered to put up $2 billion. ![]() Credit: Blue OriginĪs the two wealthiest people on the planet, many wonder how much of their own money they are willing to put into these HLS systems on top of whatever comes from taxpayers. Jeff Bezos (front center) at rollout of his Blue Origin lunar lander and announcement of Club for the Future Foundation to inspire kids to study STEM. Earth would be rezoned for residential and light industry purposes only. Bezos’ long-term vision is to preserve Earth, “the best planet in the solar system,” by moving heavy industry off of Earth to the Moon and cislunar space. Musk wants to make humanity a multi-planet species by sending millions of people to Mars, with the Moon as a nearer-term destination. SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk and Bezos both personally share a passion for space exploration. Space X bid $2.9 billion, Blue Origin $5.9 billion, and Dynetics $8.5-9 billion. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) is due to make a decision by August 4. Dynetics and Blue Origin are protesting the award. SpaceX’s two HLS competitors were Dynetics and a “National Team” led by Blue Origin with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper. Consequently NASA picked only one contractor, SpaceX, in April, to develop its Starship system. That is what it wants to do with HLS, too, but for FY2021 Congress appropriated only 25 percent of the $3.4 billion NASA requested. In both cases, NASA picked two contractors to reduce risk and ensure competition: SpaceX and Orbital Sciences (later bought by Northrop Grumman) for commercial cargo, and SpaceX and Boeing for commercial crew. NASA used this PPP model for the commercial cargo and commercial crew systems that support the International Space Station. NASA is procuring HLS as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) where the government and a contractor share development costs and the contractor retains ownership, selling services to NASA and other customers once it is operational. The other components have been in development for years: the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion crew spacecraft to get from Earth to lunar orbit and back, as well as the beginnings of a small lunar-orbiting space station called the Gateway that would be a transfer point. The pacing item is a Human Landing System (HLS) to get astronauts from lunar orbit down to and back from the surface. Trump’s goal was met with widespread skepticism that it was achieveable technically or budgetarily, but that clearly has not deterred Biden. President Biden has adopted President Trump’s goal to put American astronauts back on the Moon by 2024, just three-and-a-half years from now - the Artemis program. Jeff Bezos (in cowboy hat) and companions on the New Shepard-16 mission get Blue Origin astronaut pins after their Jsuborbital spaceflight. NASA awarded a contract to SpaceX but did not have enough money for a second contractor. Newly back from a quick trip to space on his New Shepard rocket, today Bezos sent a letter to NASA offering to waive $2 billion of the $6 billion he bid to build a Human Landing System to return astronauts to the lunar surface. The GAO contended that NASA was not required to lay out all minute details, and Blue Origin should take into account the conditions on the moon or space itself - which is dark.Jeff Bezos, who just stepped down as head of, is throwing his energies into his space company, Blue Origin. For example, the company argued that it was not specified that the vehicle should be able to land in the dark. Blue Origin complained the decision showed favoritism to SpaceXīezos said NASA had unfairly evaluated Blue Origin. "Even assuming a comparative analysis was required, SpaceX's proposal appeared to be the highest-rated under each of the three enumerated evaluation criteria as well as the lowest priced," the GAO said.ĭespite Bezos' offer to lower Blue Origin's $5.9 billion contract and take on $2 billion out-of-pocket, the GAO said NASA had found it "implausible" that the company could reduce its price without significantly changing its design. For example, both SpaceX and Blue Origin's communication systems were graded as weak, but Blue Origin's received a "significant weakness" for having less systems that were effective. NASA graded each company's proposal based on whether its strengths outweighed its weaknesses, grading each level of weakness or strength based on a scale of how much it would impact the overall mission. Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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