US watchdog rejects Blue Origin protest against NASA contract with SpaceX – IT Pro – News

Yes, other companies should also be given opportunities. But this is a mission to the moon. Blue Origin doesn’t even have a rocket capable of orbiting Earth. That’s something SpaceX has been able to do since 2008, and it’s only since then that NASA contracts have really started rolling. Also don’t forget that Blue Origin already more than half a billion in funding received for the development of their proposal. And then there’s Boeing that would also be working on it… But they have just seriously let down in recent years with their Starliner capsule, which still hasn’t made it to the ISS. That doesn’t give much confidence…

Yes Elon Musk is a weird guy and yes that Starship is completely overkill and seems to have walked right out of a SciFi movie. But if you look at what SpaceX has already done. They just do it anyway. They definitely have the best track record, Starship is being developed anyway (so is less sensitive to budget fluctuations) and they were the cheapest while they have the most capacity. The choice was an absolute no-brainer.

For Bezos, it was actually quite simple: he should have bid cheaper than SpaceX. But Blue Origin and co’s bid was literally twice as high as SpaceX’s. Yeah, that’s just not competitive. Just like Musk himself, Bezos should have put a lot of money into it to make an aggressive offer. He finally did, but only a few days ago. Figs after Easter.

I hope Blue Origin continues aggressively to achieve their goals, but I’m really not going to feel sorry for the richest man on the planet. If he really wants to go to the moon, he can just finance it himself. At the end of the day, that’s how Musk has done it. He just started building the Moon/Mars rocket, long before there was a NASA contract…

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