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In general, I'm with you about being skeptical. However, in this case, I don't think there is anything weird going on, at least not with the information we hav

In general, I'm with you about being skeptical. However, in this case, I don't think there is anything weird going on, at least not with the information we have. I've never worked at one of these contractors who service NASA, but in the past I worked for a large defense contractor who in part provided some pretty high-tech stuff to the Air Force among others. One of the things I worked on specifically was the communications computer for the Predator drone. It was the piece of equipment that received all command and control from the ground station, and sent the video back from the drone camera. The actual plane itself was made by a separate company who was more specialized in that aspect. We were very proud to work on Predator, and we absolutely would have loved to have bid on something like that. Even though we made part of it, we didn't have a complete unit. Had we have won a bid to get one, it would have gone into a glass case in our visitor area, where we would proudly display it like a trophy. I would not be surprised in the least if that is what these bidders have in mind. Consider how much fun it would be if you are showing up for a job interview and you see in a glass case in the lobby an actual brand new moon Rover! I know that would be pretty cool for me. I do tend to love museums though, so maybe I'm not the best test case.

II2II 2y ago
Stipulations include performing the science mission and releasing the data. While there the cool factor would be orders of magnitude greater, there are also considerable commitments and risk involved. So the question is: what other benefits would be involved? I'm sure there would be many, particularly if you could prove that you could launch and operate such missions, but I doubt that having a museum piece would be one of them. (And you would only have that museum piece if there is a twin that remains on Earth, which seems to be common for NASA missions.)

II2II 2y ago

Stipulations include performing the science mission and releasing the data. While there the cool factor would be orders of magnitude greater, there are also considerable commitments and risk involved. So the question is: what other benefits would be involved? I'm sure there would be many, particularly if you could prove that you could launch and operate such missions, but I doubt that having a museum piece would be one of them. (And you would only have that museum piece if there is a twin that remains on Earth, which seems to be common for NASA missions.)