Say what you want Jeff Bezos
Jeffon (Jeff) Preston Bezos, Elon Musk of SpaceX, can you help NASA return to the moon in 2024, after all? Amazon plans large physical retail stores: Bezos Blue Origin report sues NASA for awarding a lunar landing contract to Musk’s SpaceX MORE, but is not a waiver when it comes to getting a contract that he thinks suits him. When NASA awarded a single contract to Blue Origin’s main rival, SpaceX, for the human landing system (HLS), which will return the Americans to the moon, Bezos, as well as another contractor, Dynetics, went complain to the General Accounting Office (GAO). On July 30, the GAO denied the protests. Congress only provided enough money for an HLS, at least for the first round. NASA found that SpaceX offered a superior design. The fact that Elon Musk
Elon Reeve MuskTesla files to become an electric company in the Hillicon Valley in Texas: technology groups pledge to act on cybersecurity Cryptocurrency worsens climate crisis MORE the lower bid didn’t hurt either.
A less determined man would have accepted the GAO trial and ordered his engineers to perfect the Blue Origin HLS design for the next round. All SpaceX won was an unmanned test flight to the lunar surface and the Artemis III mission, the first human expedition to the moon since 1972. The next round will determine which contractors will develop their versions of the HLS in the future.
Instead, Bezos filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Federal Claims Court to overturn the concession to SpaceX. In doing so, the man who revolutionized the retail industry with Amazon.com may have condemned Blue Origin to never get a big government contract, according to space journalist Eric Berger, who wrote for Ars Technica. Bezos ’efforts to secure the lunar landing contract, which included an offer to withdraw $ 2 billion from its initial offer and a highly mocked infographic that denigrated the lunar spacecraft SpaceX, has alienated not only NASA, but many Blue Origin employees. According to Tech Times, a leading engineer on Blue Origin’s lunar landing project has jumped the ship to work on SpaceX.
The lawsuit will definitely delay the U.S. return to the moon, according to NASA administrator Bill Nelson. It is likely that Bezos will not like the delay in the space agency or supporters of the Artemis Project.
It is unclear why Bezos is compromising what could turn out to be a kamikaze movement. Eric Berger reports that Bezos believes he is entitled to an HLS contract because he believes his pressure was key to achievingPresident Trump
Donald Trump Polists face a difficult picture of post-2020 polls. Legal experts welcome sanctions from pro-Trump lawyers, say MORE need more to give the green light to the Artemis return to the moon program.
There are two problems with this belief. First, Trump considers Bezos with great contempt. According to Fox Business, the feud between Trump and Bezos dates back to 2015, before Trump’s presidency, when Bezos joked that Trump should be sent into space. Trump, who does not suffer this kind of treatment with joy, never forgave Bezos.
Second, quite a few people advocated a return to the moon, investing President Obama
Barack Hussein Obama The note: Will the DeSantis star fall as Florida’s COVID figures rise? Biden’s epic collapse has to do with these issues as much as Afghanistan. Where is Joe Biden’s “red line”? MONTHdecision to cancel the 43rd era Bush program. Jim Bridenstine
James (Jim) Frederick Bridenstine The space race for billionaires is just the beginning The day President Kennedy sent America to the moon Bill Nelson is a proponent of NASA’s commercial space MORE, Trump’s choice to lead NASA, was one of the highlights of these advocates. That return to the Moon and later the sending of astronauts to Mars attracted the mentality of Trump Make America Great Again, no doubt it also had a lot to do with his decision.
What will Bezos do if his lawsuit fails? Any influence you have in Congress may not be enough to overcome the alienation it has caused to the people at NASA and the military who write the checks. With the late delivery of the BE-4 rocket engines for the United Launch Alliance Vulcan and the New Glenn orbital launcher, all Blue Origin has to prove for the money and effort it has spent is the New Shepard rocket. The New Shepard will be used to carry people and payloads to the suborbital hops.
It is conceivable that Bezos could do it all on his own, freeing himself from confidence in government contracts. Thanks to Amazon, he is the richest man in the world and he could afford it.
The problem is that Blue Origin is more like an inherited aerospace company like Boeing or Lockheed Martin than firms that are taking new risks like SpaceX. Blue Origin has been, so far, slow and complicated, an approach that minimizes risk but also the possibility of success. All the money in the world will not be enough to turn Bezos into a true space baron unless he reinvents the Blue Origin.
Jeff Bezos may despise Elon Musk. But Musk has provided the formula for success in the next era of commercial space. Bezos has to take some risks, launch some rockets and go over the edge of the envelope. Therefore, he can still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
Mark Whittington, who often writes about space and politics, has published a political study on space exploration entitled Why Is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as “The Moon, Mars, and Beyond” and, more recently, “Why Is America Returning to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. It is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, LA Times and the Washington Post, among other places.