SpaceX’s entire development philosophy is “test early, test often and learn from failures”. This is a much quicker pace than simulating every imaginable failure scenario and leads to faster progress in development.
Is it? Starship has been in development since at least 2012-ish (as the “mars colonial transport” or “its” or “bfr” or a few other names). It hasn’t done a succesful mission yet. ULA’s Vulcan was anounced in 2014, and it works just fine. So I don’t really think it’s actually faster or better, but it IS more showy.
They’re turning enough of a profit to develop the Starship largely on internal funds
No they’re not.
SpaceX has reported 1 quarter in 2023 with positive cashflow of 55million dollars out of 1.5b in revenue, and has then gone completely silent again. SpaceX has done 33 commercial launches and 63 starlink launches. Some very basic math shows that there is no way Starlink can pay for that (63 launches times 62 million per launch divided by 2.6 million subscribers = 1500$ per user per year, which is every single subscription dollar). So two-thirds of SpaceX launch income comes from a company that itself is unsustainable and operating on purely on venture capital.
Point 3: SpaceX were the only ones with more than designs and mockups to present
Absolute and complete lie. Its exactly the opposite. SpaceX did not, and still DOES NOT have a solid design or mockup of HLS. Dynetics and Blue Origin had both.
I see no problem with awarding a contract to a bid that actually fits into the budget.
The problem is that SpaceX had a bid at the same level of the others, but they lowered it when Kathy Lueders gave them a call (and not the other parties) to lower it. This is spelled out in NASA’s own document: www3.nasa.gov/…/option-a-source-selection-stateme… (note how it’s fully written in the first person by Kathy herself). This is primary basis, massive favoritism by a NASA employee who then immediately started working for SpaceX. I’ll leave the motivations of her doing these things as an exercise to the reader.
When the other two parties found out, they offered not just to match SpaceX bid, but beat it. Of course, since Kathy Lueders didn’t show them the same favoritism, they didn’t find out till after the bidding process closed.
Multiple options was always part of the plan.
No, the contract stated that anything between zero and three were options, based on funding. They said the goal was two, but then budget was reduced. Nobody was told this. The number of contracts was also reduced to one as a result. Nobody was told this. And then Kathy Lueders gave SpaceX a call, and not the others, to share this information.
Bimfred@lemmy.world 5 months ago
The first time Starship was spoken of was in 2012, yes. The very first idealistic designs of it. The design that’s actually being tested is from 2018. So 5 years to go from “Alright, this is what we’re gonna do” to full stack flight testing. Roughly on pace with their previous rockets, the Falcon 1 and Falcon 9 took about 4 years.
Blue Origin had (and still has) no experience with human-rated capsules. The Dynetics lander had a negative mass margin. It was literally too heavy to do the job it was proposed for. Meanwhile, SpaceX proposed a derivative of what they were already working on.
SpaceX’s bid was just under 3B. Blue Origin bid at a bit under 6B. Dynetics wanted 9B. This information is freely available online. SpaceX was also given the least in design development funding, with 135 million versus Blue’s 579 million and Dynetics’ 253 million. It’s not terribly shocking that a company with a good track record and the lowest bid wins a contract.
They needed a lander contract. And when the budget got cut, they negotiated with the one bidder who was deemed most likely to still get the job done with the lower budget, as opposed to the other two whose bids were wildly over what NASA could give them. SpaceX bid at 2.94 billion and the final award was 2.89 billion. Again, BO bid 6 billion and Dynetics bid 9 billion.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
Seeing how SpaceX had neither a design or a mockup, they had no development done on their lander. Their lander STILL does not exist, not even as a mockup. They are STILL behind Blue Origin today when it comes to the lander. Blue Origin entered the HLS bid with a full mockup, that was compatible with existing technology. SpaceX entered with no mockup and entirely undeveloped technology, but was somehow judged equal (By Lueders) to Blue Origin based on
AFTER being told to do so. That’s the entire problem. Blue Origin and Dynetics both came forward and said they’d gladly match that bid, but since they didn’t get the special information that was only given to SpaceX, they couldn’t know this. BO also clearly said they would gladly develop out of pocket, but they weren’t given the special info. Because, again, the lady currently enjoying a cushy, well-paid contract at SpaceX, only gave new information to SpaceX.
Bimfred@lemmy.world 5 months ago
SpaceX didn’t need a mockup to present. They had prototypes of the base vehicle and a proposal for necessary modifications to perform the contract duties and an established track record of developing ambitious rocket engines and launch vehicles. BO had bits and pieces of other things they were gonna bolt together and a pretty model of how it’ll look like, we swear, scout’s honor. But if you’re talking about the Blue Moon that eventually won the secondary bid, that’s not what they initially proposed.Blue Moon Mk2 is a variant of a lander that’s been in development since 2016, so two years longer than SpaceX’s Starship prototypes. The one that’s planned for a lunar landing this year, Blue Moon Mk1, isn’t the one they bid for HLS. It’s a robotic lander, smaller than the HLS’s Mk2. And remember, BO is developing a lander. SpaceX is developing a fully reusable super heavy lift rocket, an interplanetary transport craft and a lunar lander as part of the same package.
Finish reading my post. SpaceX’s initial bid was 2.94 billion and the final award was 2.89 billion. Again, they agreed that they can do the job for 50 million less than what they originally bid. BO’s and Dynetics’ proposals would’ve suffered a much larger hit. And sure, BO got the secondary contract for 3.4 billion, after rethinking their entire proposal. So why did they not submit that one in the first place? If they had, they might have gotten a similar call.
Tar_alcaran@sh.itjust.works 5 months ago
No they didn’t. They had, a mockup of an empty shell into which they might eventually fit the vehicle. And they still have that.
NASA isn’t paying SpaceX for the rocket or transport though, they’re paying for a lander and getting it on and off the moon. But I fully agree that SpaceX developing a booster and LEO-transport is exactly why the lander doesn’t exist yet.
I did read your post, but what you’re failing to understand is that this 2.94 billion dollar bid was already AFTER they were informed of the budget changes.
I doubt minimizing corporate loss was Lueder’s motivation there. Presumably neither Steve Cook or Jeff Bezos offered Lueders a
large enough bribejob matching her qualifications.Ugh, you had me defending the ethical sense of Jeff Bezos. I need to go rinse my mouth now.