Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Blue Origin, is offering to knock up to $2 billion off the cost of developing a lunar lander and to self-fund a pathfinder mission in exchange for a NASA contract. //

The specific contract in question relates to developing a lunar lander for the Human Landing System program, which aims to return humans to the moon for the first time since the Apollo days. NASA announced in April 2020 that Blue Origin, SpaceX and Dynetics were chosen for the initial phase of the contract, and it was thought that the competition would likely be whittled down to two final companies to build lunar landers. //

But a year later, in a move that veered from historical practice, NASA announced it had selected just one company for the contract: SpaceX. That company, headed by Elon Musk, proposed a $2.89 billion plan for its lander – around half of Blue Origin’s $5.99 billion proposal. Bezos is now offering to cut that price tag by $2 billion. //

26 Jul

I think Elon Musk and SpaceX should indicate they would support the competition with Blue Origin if Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin accepts an HLS contract at the same $2.89B fixed price as was accepted by SpaceX. It was Blue Origin's choice to distribute their HLS development across multiple companies. SpaceX should not be short-changed for deciding to take it all on in-house while also exceeding the HLS requirements in many important future-looking ways. This would clearly show that SpaceX is not afraid of competition and is supportive of increasing the world's options in expanding access to space. It would also show that Blue Origin is not afraid of competition on a truly equal basis. //

Ben Wah
26 Jul

Just says alot how much they thought they could get away with taxpayer's money. ULA's playbook.

Edit: This is Bezos gameplan. When his proposal is rejected, get things stalled just like with the DOD’s JEDI program. It eventually got cancelled cause his complaint kept our warfighters in limbo for years to get ahead of our near-peer adversaries.