Jeff Bezos offers NASA $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/26/jeff-bezos-nasa-blue-origin-space

by theallan • 5 years ago

26 21 5 years ago

theguardian.com

londons_explore• 5 years ago

"you give me a big expensive contract, and I'll give some of the money back". Sounds like corruption to me...

gruez• 5 years ago

It's not really corruption unless it's for personal gain.

lupire3• 5 years ago

It's selling below cost to gain marketshare, same Amazon made its billions skirting antitrust law.

atonse• 5 years ago

Why would NASA consider Blue Origin for any Moon mission when they’ve yet to even put something in orbit?

The hubris is… ahem… astronomical.

lumost• 5 years ago

In fairness blue origin seemingly jumped straight to a successful launch with their founder on board. Spacex is known for their unplanned disassemblies.

It’s possible that blue origin is just taking a different set of tactics. Manned moon missions involve a lot of risk with minimal opportunity to recover, maybe a more methodical approach gets you there faster.

nyokodo• 5 years ago

In fairness blue origin seemingly jumped straight to a successful launch with their founder on board. Spacex is known for their unplanned disassemblies.

Taking 20 years to launch your first customers is more a figurative crawl than a jump. You’ll see their fair share of RUDs from Blue Origin once they start testing orbital rockets instead of impressive toys. In the meantime SpaceX is landing orbital boosters on autonomous barges at sea and testing a giant interplanetary grain silo. All the best to Blue Origin but don’t be fooled, they are playing a desperate game of catch-up and failing a bit right now. Go Team Space!

lupire3• 5 years ago

SpaceX is knowing for everything because they are actually getting work done at a fast clip.

jjk166• 5 years ago

This was Blue Origin's first launch with humans on board, but they've been flying their rocket for years. Bezos' flight was the 16th launch. They had one unintentional crash in 2015, and a few intentional aborts. Actually during their 15th launch, they did have crew onboard briefly while the rocket was fueled as part of the launch rehearsal, but they exited before liftoff.

SpaceX, for comparison, did not try launching humans until its 85th Falcon 9 mission. While several falcon 9s have failed to land, only one has ever failed in flight, on its 19th flight. The Falcon 9, unlike the New Shepard, is orbital capable.

chews• 5 years ago

Why? Maybe the bribe they’re being offered...

zardo• 5 years ago

The contract is to build and operate a manned lunar lander, not a launch vehicle.

mlindner• 5 years ago

He was proposing to launch his lander on his non-existant rocket though.

maverwa• 5 years ago

Not sure if this was "added in translation" or if Reuters dropped it, but according to the german "Tagesschau" (source would be the DPA) the deal would be to have a new evaluation round between Space X and Blue Origin, not a direct contract. Not sure which is correct, but both sounds like corruption to me.

jfengel• 5 years ago

For $2 billion, could he purchase a ride on a rocket to take his lander to the moon, and just do the whole thing privately?

Chris2048• 5 years ago

He is doing it privately, just using his own infra.

mensetmanusman• 5 years ago

This was linked later in an accompanying article:

https://www.change.org/p/the-proletariat-do-not-allow-jeff-b...

It seems strange to me that so many people would get mad about billionaires spending money on science exploration, but you don’t hear a peep when they buy 150 m yachts…

zamadatix• 5 years ago

I'm on the "glad to see more space exploration" side myself but to be fair most people aren't happy with the yachts either and it is mentioned decently often. The level of fanfare probably has more to do with the press releases and media briefings and live streams of his first trip on it. You don't usually tell the media how great an achievement your first trip on your new yacht is, it's a quieter deal.

NortySpock• 5 years ago

https://www.blueorigin.com/news/open-letter-to-administrator...

"Blue Origin will [...] waiv[e] all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2B to get the program back on track right now. This offer is not a deferral, but is an outright and permanent waiver [...]"

I dunno, sounds like "no payments until you're locked into our system". I know I wouldn't take that bait if I was a federal contract reviewer.

From a meta point, it's as though Blue Origin doesn't know how bidding contracts works; you put your best foot forward first, you don't sweeten the deal after the contract is awarded.

Certainly they are making a decent PR play in the news though.

lupire3• 5 years ago

They are probably doing both. Bezos knows how to bribe government.

nonfamous• 5 years ago

Between this and JEDI, how many major national projects have to be stalled or cancelled to satisfy Bezo’s fragile ego for losing?

datameta• 5 years ago

"Without competition, a short time into the contract, Nasa will find itself with limited options as it attempts to negotiate missed deadlines, design changes and cost overruns,” he wrote. “Without competition, Nasa’s short-term and long-term lunar ambitions will be delayed, will ultimately cost more, and won’t serve the national interest.”

Hearing Bezos herald himself as the defender against monopoly is multiple tiers of hypocritical.

chadlavi• 5 years ago

What if he just paid his taxes instead

Jeff Bezos offers NASA $2bn in exchange for moon mission contract

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