NASA's Dilemma: Put Humans On The Moon Or Feed Big Aerospace
Keith’s note: Congress has consistently appropriated a small fraction of what is needed to continue with Human Lander work. The proposed FY 2022 budget from the Biden Administration still falls far short of what NASA has said that it needs to implement the Artemis program of record. NASA cannot award contracts with money it does not have – or will not get. According to the GAO, who will handle the Blue Origin and Dynetics HLS complaints, the Antideficiency Act provides a rather blunt roadblock to these protests since this law “prohibits federal agencies from obligations or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation, and from accepting voluntary services.”
Faced with a substantial shortfall in funds, NASA had to take that fact into account as it evaluated HLS proposals. Significant technical merits and issues aside, the numbers from Dynetics and Blue Origin were simply beyond the possible. SpaceX was much cheaper at $2.89 billion and an adjustment in its stated cost was possible. So, NASA went to the lowest bidder and asked if they could adjust their price. They did.
Blue Origin has stated that its bid was $5.99 billion. NASA stated that the Dynetics bid was “significantly higher” than the Blue Origin bid. It seriously stretches the imagination to think that they could match the SpaceX bid. Now they are protesting the decision.
NASA has not said whether they will pause work with SpaceX or on-going work with Blue Origin and Dynetics while GAO examines the two protests. Protests like these rarely succeed. The only real impact these protests will likely have is to delay work on meeting Artemis programmatic goals.
There are other threats too. Many in Congress would rather have NASA own the human lander outright which would cost more. Others think that the budgetary underpinnings of the Artemis program are too uncertain to make such a contract award. As such, even if GAO dismisses these two HLS contract award protests, NASA still faces a lot of resistance as it strives to put Americans back on the lunar surface.
Of course Big Aerospace could dial up their lobbying game and push Congress for billions more to build their systems. NASA Administrator-in-waiting Bill Nelson has been a big SLS fan since Day One, so you know that he’d certainly be listening to that option with some lingering interest.
The real question is where the Biden Administration decides to come down on all of this. Either they can adapt to national fiscal realities, think outside the box as they did with the SpaceX decision, and try to minimize the lingering impact of NASA’s perennial delays and overruns — or they can give in to Big Aerospace and pump more money into a clearly broken process that has yet to show a chance of ever meeting a program deadline.
– Blue Origin Formally Protests NASA HLS Contract Award, earlier post
– NASA Submits A Budget – And Adjusts Its Artemis Aspirations, earlier post
– House FY 2021 Budget Makes 2024 Moon Landing Doubtful, earlier post
– Senators Urge Biden To Fully Fund Artemis Human Landing System, earlier post
– Artemis Human Lander Contract Decision Delayed, earlier post
– NASA OIG: Planned Artemis Launch Dates Are “Highly Unlikely”, earlier post
– GAO On Artemis: Behind Schedule, Over Cost, Lacking Clear Direction, earlier post
– OIG On NASA’s Challenges: A Moon Landing By 2024 Is Unlikely, earlier post
– Congress Still Wants An Artemis Plan From NASA, earlier post
And so on. More here.
I think if Bill Nelson asked Biden for another billion or two for the NASA budget, he’d probably get it. It’s not a huge add-on, and they’re already planning a big new infrastructure bill anyways that will have tons of stuff in it.
$ don’t come from the executive branch. Funds are appropriated by Congress.
The Administration proposes a budget though, and both Biden and Nelson could ask their allies in Congress to add it in.
True. I have a hard time imagining why they would spend political capital on that. For years, Congress has amended administration budgets to reduce spending in support of new space in favor of cost-plus make-work spending for old space. If Congress wants to increase spending in order to fund high-priced projects in their districts, they won’t need any encouragement from the White House to do it.
BO and and Dynetics filing suits is just 39A all over again. Bezos, to be blunt, wants to substitute legal threats for competence and capacity. He lacks the latter, so tries to wield the former to slow everyone else down. I have zero doubt that NASA has done their due diligence on this, with the full expectation that BO & Dynetics would respond in exactly this way. SpaceX is moving forward on their own timeline these days. They won’t miss a beat in their development work while this legal dance goes on. It’s time to speak up, Folks. Let your Senators and Members of the House know where you stand and where you expect them to stand.
My guess is Congress will increase HLS funding enough to give “National Team” an award and be done with it.
“BO and and Dynetics filing suits is just 39A all over again. Bezos, to be blunt, wants to substitute legal threats for competence and capacity.” Well SpaceX did sue the Air Force twice over losing bids I believe… so probably not that unusua with this much money at stakel. That said, BO is certainly does not appear to be on a good trajectory (pun somewhat intended) these days…
A great headline Keith that succinctly summarizes the situation.
If NASA/Congress end up feeding aerospace rather than prioritizing efficient exploration, NASA’s name should be changed to NAPA – National Aerospace Pork Association.
Every so often a chance comes along to change the game. We have one now. New space or legacy space. Revolution vs. evolution.
Indeed. Even with the benefit of hindsight, it’s hard enough to identify the importance of single historical event. Contemporaneously placing an event in history is more difficult.
Here we have a choice plainly marking an inflection point, a case strongly substantiated, as usual, by Eric Berger:
“It is transformational to degrees no one today can understand”
And this: do not discount the leadership shown by Ms. Lueder, and her staff. This decision substantiates my observation that NASA in particular and government in general is heavily populated by smart, dedicated people.
She could have punted. Instead, she stood up and made a great call.
https://arstechnica.com/sci…
I wonder what happens if Congress decides to defund Artemis…and Musk decides to go it alone? He might just be able to raise funds from other private sources. If not, we might all just watch while China lays claim to Shakleton Crater!
ya . I mean heck . china launches human at a pretty amazing rate. The last time they put humans in to LEO was 5 years ago. I can see them ginning up and landing on Luna once and then five years later a second time. They have not made launching humans into LEO routine. It will be an ever greater task to land on Luna routinely.
I expect that the pace will pick up now that they have a space station for the astronauts to go to. One of the problems with just putting humans into LEO is finding something for them to do once they get there.
They said six month tours like the ISS .. so they only need two launches per year. Still not setting any records.
spacex just had two funding rounds earlier this year that each raised over $1B. given their HLS bid was $2.9B they could probably swing self funding.
I could see supporting big aerospace if they played honestly; they don’t. They have been slowing progress for a long time and the current situation is no different. We are lucky to have Space X and Elon Musk to lead our way out of the current situation.
Both BO and Dynetics know the GAO protest wont amount to much. Blue Origin is just trying to gain leverage with new NASA Admin Bill Nelson and Congress and Dynetics is just trying to salvage their reputation as the current technical assessment makes them look like complete idiots. Hopefully the GAO findings will reveal more details and context that will portray them in a more flattering light.
Sometimes one has to wonder what’s behind their actions. Do they really think that by taking legal action they will help the program? Besos has been talking about a “space program” for more than a decade yet aside from some earthbound hopping passenger observatories and some big static displays in trade shows, has never demonstrated he can accomplish anything.
How about defunding Starliner and reprogramming those funds towards backup designs for the lunar lander?
No, we need a backup Commercial Crew vehicle in case Dragon has a bad day. Better to redirect it to SNC for a crew Dream Chaser.