Quartz by Tim Fernholz 8/19/2021
When the existence of Blue Origin was first revealed by reporter Brad Stone in 2003, four years after the secretive start-up was founded, Jeff Bezos wouldn’t comment on his space company directly. Instead, he issued a pean to the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA), that premiere purveyor of final frontier exploration.
“NASA is a national treasure, and it’s total bull that anyone should be frustrated by NASA,” the mogul wrote in an email to Stone. “The work NASA does is technically super-demanding and inherently risky, and they continue to do an outstanding job. The ONLY reason any of these small space companies have a chance of doing ANYTHING is because they get to stand on the shoulders of NASA’s accomplishments and ingenuity.”
Well, Bezos is now frustrated by NASA. Last week, Blue sued the space agency in federal court, arguing that it inappropriately awarded a multi-billion dollar contract for a lunar lander to Blue’s chief rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Blue’s initial challenge to that decision was rejected by the Government Accountability Office, which found that NASA had not played favorites in choosing just one contractor due to lack of funding for two.
Lawsuits between contractors and the government aren’t uncommon. In a way, they’ve helped define the rise of commercial space companies and SpaceX itself. But it’s worth looking at how this challenge diverges from others that arguably opened up low-earth orbit for business.
More:
https://qz.com/emails/space-business/2049413/
