Musk, Bezos fight to win lease of iconic NASA launchpad, Orlando Sentinel
“Sources on Capitol Hill and within NASA said Blue Origin’s protests forced the space agency to announce a competition for the pad in May. The dispute also has drawn the attention of two members of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. In a July 22 letter to NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden, U.S. Reps. Frank Wolf, R-Va., and Robert Aderholt, R-Ala., said “NASA appears to be racing to lease LC-39A” and urged a closer review. “Given that taxpayers have invested hundreds of millions, if not a billion dollars, to develop this launch complex, there are serious questions of fiscal responsibility and transparency,” they wrote. Agency officials have put no timeline on a decision, although it’s widely thought NASA wants to select a winner by Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year.”
– Long-term Lease for Pad 39A Almost Set, earlier post
– Fighting Innovation at Pad 39A, earlier post

Biologist, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA Space Biologist and Payload integrator, Editor of NASAWatch.com and Astrobiology.com, Lapsed climber, Explorer, Synaesthete, Former Challenger Center board member 🖖🏻

4 replies on “Pad 39 A Competition Continues”

  1. Amazon are building a distribution center in Fl. about 10 mi. N. of me. A little extra. It might help him. I get things faster, but they will collect sales tax. Shipping might be less though.

  2. What a storm in a teacup. NASA desperately needs to get rid of this due to cost and cost alone. SpaceX is the only likely commercial to fly from there in the near future. BO hasn’t even got their sub-orbital stuff sorted out but if they’re willing to pay for it then it’s a mute point.
    Doubt very much that SpaceX is ‘fighting’ anyone on this. They will have a range of pricing they’re willling to accept and if not then will have other plans as a fallback. It’s not, so far as I can see, a must have for them.

    1. What would perhaps be ideal is for SpaceX to go head and use pad 39A. Then let Blue Origin (and ULA) can share pad 39B with the SLS. However, Jeff Bezos not the kind of guy to give up easily when he sets his sights on something. He has the resources and undoubtedly has the personality to cause a lot of political movement if he wants to do so. He dumped $250 million *cash* for the Washington Post and for some strange reason as yet unbenowst to me is plucking Apollo F1 engines up from the ocean floor. He’s gotta 10,000 year clock back on the ranch in the absolute middle of nowhere that he carved out of a desert mountain. He’s just that kind of guy. However, on the positive side he developed Amazon and he believes in building infrastructure and he shares his concepts with other retailers on line, so in a way he is the ideal candidate to share a launch pad with.

  3. Too bad BO has not used this lobbying power to support something meaningful like commercial crew or the use of SAA’s more broadly. They are just trying to derail their competitor. Hope when it is over they will use this muscle for something worthwhile – like showing what a waste it is to spend $3B a year NASA on SLS/Orion that won’t launch for 10 years and will then cost $6B a launch every 2 years – no nowhere. Now that would actually advance their cause!

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