4 ms·
One way to think about it is Starship is designed to be a generic space ship/lander like a 747, and SpaceX HLS contract is an agreement to build some modified 7
by themgt 3y ago
One way to think about it is Starship is designed to be a generic space ship/lander like a 747, and SpaceX HLS contract is an agreement to build some modified 747s off the assembly line for this specific NASA purpose (along with tanker/etc that were already planned). Whereas the Blue Origin's proposal is more of a purpose-built lunar lander + tug vehicle.
So the pricing may actually make sense for all parties involved. It is interesting that BO plans to launch this on New Glenn but aren't going the Starship route of just landing New Glenn's upper stage on the Moon directly (even though with Jarvis it's intended to land on Earth?). But for NASA's purposes hedging on a more traditional lander might be preferable anyway.
- cubefox 3y agoBut NASA gets a lot more future benefit from Starship tech, whereas the BO solution is completely useless for Mars, or really anything involving a larger crew. So the pricing makes not much sense. Of course this is an incredibly minor problem compared to the vast amounts of money that are wasted on SLS instead of being invested in private rockets.
- panick21_ 3y agoThis is kind of the issue here. NASA doesn't really have a long term strategy. The want to achieve X and then make everybody bid on X. Then Y and so on. They don't say 'in 30 years we want to be able to do X, what are the steps we need to take'. SpaceX has that approach luckily they can get some money from NASA to further that program.