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NASA selects SpaceX Starship system to land on moon - Discussion of Preparations
- Thread starter Cosmacelf
- Start date
No. There‘s a lot of other stuff being developed, not the least is SLS and Orion. NASA is currently reevaluating the schedule.
This is assuming that it isn't there, I suppose. I can see SpaceX pulling this off without it. You just have to be able to dock to Orion. I'm sure the HLS Starship could do that easily. As a backup, HLS Starship could dock with a Crew Dragon in LEO and still get Astronauts to the Moon's surface and back to the Dragon in LEO.
Mo City
Active Member
Bezos wants to overturn it.
This was such a devastating loss for Blue Origin I don't think they have much choice but to take a swing at it. Their chances of success are slim but they can't go down without a hard fight. For public consumption, NASA can say they will open this up to competition in the future but everyone with their head screwed on knows that door is slammed shut if SpaceX is successful.
There is also the slim chance NASA gets additional funding and Blue Origin is added to the program.
This was such a devastating loss for Blue Origin I don't think they have much choice but to take a swing at it. Their chances of success are slim but they can't go down without a hard fight. For public consumption, NASA can say they will open this up to competition in the future but everyone with their head screwed on knows that door is slammed shut if SpaceX is successful.
There is also the slim chance NASA gets additional funding and Blue Origin is added to the program.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Bezos might have an argument if they had a launch vehicle that was actively ferrying clients and cargo . . .
But he doesn't, so he can piss off.
But he doesn't, so he can piss off.
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
"Dynetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Leidos, filed a protest with the GAO regarding the HLS Option A award on April 26th. Dynetics firmly believes our HLS design offers great potential to contribute toward NASA's HLS program goals and we believe NASA's initial plan for continued competition remains the best approach to ensure program success. Dynetics has issues and concerns with several aspects of the acquisition process as well as elements of NASA's technical evaluation and filed a protest with the GAO to address them. We respect this process and look forward a fair and informed resolution of the matter. Dynetics will not be making any further comments regarding the protest process."
JohnSnowNW
Active Member
Perhaps they can design a system that can actually land on the moon during this protest period.
Mo City
Active Member
What a joke. After Amazon filed, this became an example of "monkey see, monkey do" for Dynetics. They knew they didn't have a snowball's chance and so did everyone else.
If the folks at NASA are worth a dime, they expected Blue Origin to file and are already well-prepared to justify excluding them.
On the other hand, it will take <5 mins to prepare for Dynetics.
Indeed.
It is unfortunate SpaceX doesn't have enough funding to simply go to the moon on their own; it is unfortunate they have to play the old space game that every other company is trying to play, which is to exploit the deep (and willing) pockets of The Man.
As fun as it is to make fun of Blue--and certainly not dismissing criticism of some of their rhetoric/hyperbolics--their 'moving goalposts' complaint is actually legit in the context of that government game. That game asked a (more or less) fairly specific question of participants and spaceX's response was (more or less) "you're not asking the right question, here's the answer to the question you should have asked". Unfortunately, like the recent OneWeb conjunction the SpaceX PR and lobby machines (entities which, like most everything else SpaceX does, are better than their competitors) will surely spin this into a rosy picture of Elonco, so its going to be hard for the public to ferret out the real facts...and like most controversial stories around SpaceX folks are going to base their perspective on what they want to be true and which team they're rooting for.
Focusing instead on things that aren't so emotionally charged and maybe a topic we can all agree upon, IMHO the root problem here is the way the gub'ment procurement machine fundamentally works, not just for aerospace stuff but really for pretty much anything. Generally an entity submits a proposal against a pretty detailed vision that has been 'vetted' by The Experts working (double entendre intended) for The Machine, and then one hopes real hard their lobbyists or senators (or whatever other connections they have in the political machine) are better than those working for the competition. Because the whole lifecycle is burdened with agendas the technical solutions get watered down and the spends get inflated and the original ask becomes a game of "who can bring me the biggest rock" when, to SpaceX's point, maybe the ask should be for a stick instead.
IMHO a much better (if not much less politically motivated) approach would be to have very broad mission requirements on a fixed budget. "We want to put Americans on the moon for $3B. What can you do for $3B?". That both ensures government funding of technology/manufacturing (which, let's face it, is to some degree both important and necessary) and also fosters the creativity of American companies, while also mixing in a healthy dose of competition/Capitalism.
opensecrets.org
Annual Lobbying 2020:
| Draper | $120 000 |
| ULA | $1 856 776 |
| Blue Origin | $1 930 000 |
| Leidos | $2 120 000 |
| SpaceX | $2 220 000 |
| Northrop Grumman | $12 050 000 |
| Boeing | $12 630 000 |
| Lockheed Martin | $12 960 810 |
Senate bill would direct NASA to select a second HLS company
"An amendment to a Senate bill would require NASA to select a second company for its Human Lander System program, a provision some fear could upend the overall effort to return humans to the moon as soon as 2024."
Senate bill would direct NASA to select a second HLS company
An amendment to a Senate bill would require NASA to select a second company for its Human Lander System program.
spacenews.com
bkp_duke
Well-Known Member
Senate bill would direct NASA to select a second HLS company
"An amendment to a Senate bill would require NASA to select a second company for its Human Lander System program, a provision some fear could upend the overall effort to return humans to the moon as soon as 2024."
Senate bill would direct NASA to select a second HLS company
An amendment to a Senate bill would require NASA to select a second company for its Human Lander System program.
This smells so badly of PORK, it's not even funny.
Can't beat 'em technologically, go line the politician's pockets.
Nikxice
Active Member
A Boeing lackey, Senator Maria Cantwell (elected 2001) speaking in favor of a 2nd HLS contract, “I think there needs to be redundancy, and it has to be clear in this process that it can’t be redundancy later. It has to be redundancy now.”.....Wonder if she ever considered awarding a 2nd contract for SLS redundancy? Guessing probably not. Ten years gone by, not even a test launch. She and her cohorts have no credibility.
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