Posted on 04/16/2021 1:52:06 PM PDT by Shadylake
ORLANDO, Fla., April 16 (UPI) -- Elon Musk's SpaceX has won a $2.9 billion contract to develop the company's Starship rocket as a lunar lander to carry astronauts on Artemis moon missions, NASA announced Friday.
In selecting only SpaceX for the lunar program, NASA ended consideration of Musk's rival, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his Blue Origin space company, and a third proposal by Huntsville, Ala.-based Dynetics.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
So it'll be SLS to and back from lunar gateway and and Earth and Starship from gateway to moon and back. Just hope Biden doesn't cancel the whole thing before it happens.
Musk is one the country’s premiere winners of govt largesse. A role model for us all!
He’s also the only one that can launch humans to space at all besides Russia and sometimes China.
Musk has some VERY top-notch engineering and technical staff working for him. They’ll do excellent work on the lander.
They’ll never make it in time for 2024.
I’ll be happy if they can do by 2026. However, things are moving pretty fast for Artemis 1 now.
Why?
Pretty much. I’m also not a big fan of needing a very tall elevator to deploy and then go up and down many times to get on the surface. I just hope it’ll work.
Someday soon man will actually walk on the moon.
It will be a small first step for mankind
I liked that Simpsons 60’s NASA spoof where they went ‘The moon belongs to America’.
I thought we already had a lunar lander that runs on a Commodore 64.
I couldn’t discuss the merits of any of the designs or technology, too far above my pay grade. But I will say that Musk seems to be much more involved in the project personally. Much more experience with building things in general. Bezos doesn’t seem to come in the top 5 - behind Musk, and the Virgin Galactic guy, and NASA, and the defense contractors... Sure he could throw endless money at it. But he doesn’t seem personally invested in it at all from my POV.
Of course he can underbid. When funding problems come up down the road, he doesn’t have a problem, NASA has the problem.
Hmm...I wonder What kind of person you need to be to win a contract with the deep state now days.?.?
>>Musk is one the country’s premiere winners of govt largesse. A role model for us all!
Yep, without government money and subsidies, he would be worth only fraction of what he is worth.
Ironic for a guy who takes so much from the government, and yet moves from CA to TX so he can cut down on the taxes he pays.
Are the explosions standard equipment or do they cost extra?
Why not?
The SpaceX bid was much lower than the other two bids.
I wouldn’t call it “govt largesse”.
So, do you work for Blue Origin, or Dyanetics?
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