Stefan Mileschin

So much for helping it along

Jeff Bezos' space company Blue Origin brought its fight against NASA's Moon programme to federal court on Monday, claiming that the agency wrongly evaluated its lunar lander proposal.

In the good old days, before private enterprise had such a foothold in the space industry, NASA only had to worry about Congress budgets. Now if awards a contract to one Big Tech company, it has to justify the decision in court, which can take years.

For those who came in late, this complaint escalates a monthslong crusade by the company to win a chunk of lunar lander funds that was only given to its rival, Elon Musk's SpaceX and comes weeks after Blue Origin's first protest over the Moon programme was squashed by a federal watchdog agency.

Blue Origin's challenge could add another pause to SpaceX's contract and a new lengthy delay to NASA's race to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024. It also quashes any belief that the corporate billionaires funding the push into space really care that much about the bigger picture.

Blue Origin's complaint, filed with the US Court of Federal Claims, was shrouded behind a protective order. The company is broadly challenging NASA's decision to pick SpaceX for the lunar lander award, and "more specifically ... challenges NASA's unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals submitted under the HLS Option A BAA, according to its request to file its complaint under seal.

https://fudzilla.com/news/53385-bezo...moon-programme