World News

Billionaire line: Musk slips NASA ‘s lunar project into Bezos Automotive news

Elon Musk recently won a coveted U.S. government contract to build a spacecraft for the moon. Jeff Bezos was not happy.

The space race between the two richest men in the world went into hypertransference on Tuesday with an attempt by Tesla chief Elon Musk to challenge a major NASA contract with Jeff Bezos.

The two billionaires, who tried to launch long-range orbital rockets, were competing for the coveted contract of the U.S. government in 2024 to build a spacecraft to take astronauts to the moon.

Musk won. Bezos was not happy.

Bezos’s Blue Origin protested Monday at the Office of Government Accounts (GAO), and complained that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) had recently moved the doors to contract bidders.

Musk, who also directs SpaceX, backed out: “It can’t go up (into orbit) jeje.”

He didn’t work on the tweet, but Bezos pasted a screenshot of the 2019 report on the moon’s take on Blue Origin on the same Twitter thread.

Blue Origin has come a long way in the orbiting of SpaceX and the United Launch Alliance (ULA), and lost $ 1 billion worth of U.S. national security launch contracts that began in 2022. ULA is a joint venture between Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp.

The purpose of these rocket launches is to send customer satellites into orbit at an affordable price and reuse rocket parts to keep costs under control.

Earlier this month, NASA awarded SpaceX a lunar contract over its Blue Origin and Dynetics defense contract. The project is aimed at returning humans to the moon for the first time since 1972.

“NASA has made a mistake for the Human Landing System program and has scored goals at the last minute,” Blue Origin said in an email note.

“Their decision eliminates opportunities for competition, significantly reduces the supply base, and not only delays, but puts America at risk of returning to the moon. That’s why we filed a protest at the GAO.”

The GAO also confirmed that Dynetics had placed the NASA contract award to SpaceX. Dynetics did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.

Only Musk’s SpaceX made the offer, with Amazon.com founder Bezos ’Blue Origin with Lockheed Martin Corp., Northrop Grumman Corp. and Draper.

Blue Origin reported a 50-page protest presentation earlier in The New York Times.




Source link

Related Articles

Back to top button