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Artemis

A Blue Origin Amazon Prime Special On Human Landing Systems

By Keith Cowing
NASA Watch
July 26, 2021
Filed under , ,
A Blue Origin Amazon Prime Special On Human Landing Systems

Letter From Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos To NASA Administrator Bill Nelson: Human Landing System
“In April (prior to your confirmation as NASA administrator), only one HLS bidder, SpaceX, was offered the opportunity to revise their price and funding profile, leading to their selection. Blue Origin was not offered the same opportunity. That was a mistake, it was unusual, and it was a missed opportunity. But it is not too late to remedy. We stand ready to help NASA moderate its technical risks and solve its budgetary constraints and put the Artemis Program back on a more competitive, credible, and sustainable path. Our Appendix H HLS contract is still open and can be amended.
With that in mind and on behalf of the National Team, we formally offer the following for your consideration:
• Blue Origin will bridge the HLS budgetary funding shortfall by waiving all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2B to get the program back on track right now. This offer is not a deferral, but is an outright and permanent waiver of those payments. This offer provides time for government appropriation actions to catch up.
• Blue Origin will, at its own cost, contribute the development and launch of a pathfinder mission to low-Earth orbit of the lunar descent element to further retire development and schedule risks. This pathfinder mission is offered in addition to the baseline plan of performing a precursor uncrewed landing mission prior to risking any astronauts to the Moon. This contribution to the program is above and beyond the over $1B of corporate contribution cited in our Option A proposal that funds items such as our privately developed BE-7 lunar lander engine and indefinite storage of liquid hydrogen in space. All of these contributions are in addition to the $2B waiver of payments referenced above.
• Finally, Blue Origin will accept a firm, fixed-priced contract for this work, cover any system development cost overruns, and shield NASA from partner cost escalation concerns.”

Keith’s note: You have to wonder who advises Jeff Bezos on his outreach, PR, and overall tone setting. More than half of the stories that have circulated (or continue to circulate) about his flight last week are not positive. Indeed some are overtly negative. So, instead of sending a private letter to Bill Nelson to make this offer, he releases this thing with the clear intent of trying to use public pressure and money (as an afterthought) to Big Foot the matter and reverse the HLS decision. Bad press about space billionaires having their way in space now mixes with space billionaires trying to change NASA decisions that they do not like. No one benefits from this.
GAO is not deterred by external pressure and they will make their decision known – possibly as early as next week. Nelson is going to have a hard time arguing with the GAO’s protest ruling if they side with NASA’s earlier decision – especially since the basic factor that guided the sole source decision i.e. not enough money for more than one contractor – is still in force. NASA decided to make one HLS award since they could not make a decision to spend money that they simply do not have. NASA still has no idea where they are going to get all the money to keep the program of record on track for a 2024 lunar landing – or any other landing.
Members of Congress from the affected states will pressure NASA to consider this offer. Bill Nelson did not really hide his displeasure at the down select to one vendor so he may not put up much of a fight. The GAO analysis was made without this offer from Blue Origin. Blue Origin only focuses on their side of the equation and does not take into account the things NASA will have to do to adopt their proposal. And if they accept Blue Origin’s proposal then why shouldn’t they just give Dynetics a second shot or, for that matter SpaceX and the other bidders and just re-do the whole procurement. Heck, Elon could throw a billion Bitcoin in 😉 If this after-the-fact proposal is now considered, then the net result will certainly be yet another delay in the process of developing a Human Landing System for Artemis. It also sends a message to big aerospace that you can reverse NASA decisions – if you offer enough money.
Besides, SpaceX may well decide to just go to the Moon anyway on their own dime.

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.

19 responses to “A Blue Origin Amazon Prime Special On Human Landing Systems”

  1. Chris says:
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    If that’s the case why the need to lobby for $10 billion?

  2. TheBrett says:
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    It’s a welcome statement of confidence on Bezos’ part in Blue Origin (and makes me wonder if he actually is planning to take a more active role in its management going forward), but without an increase in overall NASA funding the National Team would still be a worse deal than SpaceX in HLS funding.

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      It won’t do him any good unless Blue sorts out the mess that is the BE-4 engine, which both Vulcan and New Glenn depend on. If it’s significantly delayed, as appears to be the case, what heavy lift launcher will they use? Falcon Heavy? Starship? .SLS (shudder!!)?

      https://twitter.com/SciGuyS

      https://twitter.com/DELTA_V

    • Todd Austin says:
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      I read it more as a statement of desperation, with a dose of willingness to throw money at it tossed in to sweeten the deal. Willingness to peel a few bucks off of his mountain of cash does not mean he’s going to give his time to it. He continues to impress me as mostly interested in posing for the cameras. I feel sorry for the SpaceX folks he’s lured away. They’ve gone from actually doing things to only appearing to do things while the suits file suits, which must be frustrating as heck.

  3. Chris Owen says:
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    Not exactly a hardware-centric approach. I thought SpaceX not only had the lowest bid but also the most scalable hardware?

    • Russel aka 'Rusty' Shackleford says:
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      Scalable?!? It’s already scaled out of the box.

      • fcrary says:
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        Pretty much. Part of the HLS solicitation asked how the proposed landers for Artemis III could be turned into something which could satisfy the requirements for Artemis IV and later missions. SpaceX said they could do that by making no changes: The lunar Starship would be capable of satisfying those requirements from the start. NASA’s reviewers found that convincing. Blue Origin and Dynetics said some less than convincing things about evolving their designs. From the source selection statement, I get the impression the “evolved” design would have been more or less a whole new vehicle.

  4. space1999 says:
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    Perhaps Blue Origin should have put this offer in their original proposal? As has been stated before, the reason NASA could negotiate with SpaceX was because they selected SpaceX for award. They did not select Blue Origin or Dynetics, so could not with them. Seems like they would have to start from scratch again… or maybe do some kind of add on contract with a sole source justification. Anyway just speculating not my area of expertise.

  5. Jack says:
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    I just wonder what string are attached to that $2 Billion……

  6. ed2291 says:
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    First Blue Origin lost because it was too expensive AND not nearly as capable as Space X.
    Second Blue Origin appealed even though their bid was much more expensive and much less capable.
    Third Blue Origin tried an end run around the Senate, but the House stopped it.

    Now Blue Origin says they are willing to invest their own money as Space X has been doing all along.

    Way too little. Way too late.

  7. Mat says:
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    To save some space and weight, might be an idea to use a LAMP expandable ascent module. https://uploads.disquscdn.c

    • Terry Stetler says:
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      Wait, there’s more!!

      Bezos wants a stainless steel reusable upper stage (Jarvis, aka Starship Jr.) for New Glenn (to close the business case), and he wants to fight the Outer Space Treaty ban on claiming celestial bodies.

      https://arstechnica.com/sci

      • fcrary says:
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        That’s not really true. The Ars article simply says Blue Origins has hired a lawyer with some views on the Outer Space Treaty. And it isn’t clear if those views are about letting private companies claim celestial bodies. To me, it sound more like he things private companies should be allowed to own and sell extraterrestrial resources they have extracted, and that the UN shouldn’t be given control of all commercial resource extraction work in space. That’s not the same as saying Blue Origin should be able to claim celestial bodies.

        • Terry Stetler says:
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          Fair enough, but ISTM they need to concentrate on Job One; getting BE-4 sorted out so they can fulfill their ULA contract and get New Glenn’s first stage ready.

  8. Bill Housley says:
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    Now that he finally gets how this works, he’s ready to bid on his next fixed-price NASA contract some day.

    I like what someone somewhere said today…pretty much “You can invest that $2B to work on improving your lander and then bid again someday.”

    I don’t want to sound too cynical about it. I really am impressed with how much he has learned about fixed-price contracting…judging from the contents of this letter. It’s just a year or so late is all. If GSA gives him another shot at this contract, and Congress ponies up the money, he might have a shot at this. If not, then it sounds like he’ll be ready for the next round. NASA is only taking bidders for one lander on this moonshot but they plan on going back and SpaceX might be busy frying Martian fish by then.

    I’ve said it here before. Bezos is one of the most skilled businessmen of our time. He’ll figure this out.

  9. Leonard McCoy says:
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    Jeff says that the $ 2B is from Blue Origin but wonder how the National Team Partners feel now. Effectively reducing the price only increases risk in th schedule and technical areas. It will be interesting when Jeff tries to get the other team members to contribute towards the offset – good luck with that.