Judge Releases Redacted Lunar Lander Lawsuit From Bezos' Blue Origin Against NASA-SpaceX Contract (cnbc.com) 36
ytene writes: As reported by CNBC, the US Court of Federal Claims has released a redacted version of the lawsuit, filed by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, in a complaint against NASA. Earlier this year, the agency had awarded a $2.9 billion contract to SpaceX for the design and development of a lunar lander.
Although NASA has a long history of awarding contracts to promote innovation and competition, the Blue Origin suit seemed a little unusual given the company's current lack of launch experience (they have completed numerous successful tests, including a high-altitude "edge of space" flight for Bezos, his brother and guests, but have yet to place any vehicle in orbit, let alone establish a credible, commercial space flight presence).
As was also reported by CNBC, the Government Accountability Office conducted an investigation in to the initial Blue Origin complaint, after NASA suspended the process, but found no evidence that NASA awarded the contract incorrectly and denied the initial Blue Origin complaint.
Although NASA has a long history of awarding contracts to promote innovation and competition, the Blue Origin suit seemed a little unusual given the company's current lack of launch experience (they have completed numerous successful tests, including a high-altitude "edge of space" flight for Bezos, his brother and guests, but have yet to place any vehicle in orbit, let alone establish a credible, commercial space flight presence).
As was also reported by CNBC, the Government Accountability Office conducted an investigation in to the initial Blue Origin complaint, after NASA suspended the process, but found no evidence that NASA awarded the contract incorrectly and denied the initial Blue Origin complaint.
Redacted version below.. (Score:2)
Plaintiff: "Waaa! Boo-hoo. Sob."
By the way, here's a hint to the Slashdot devs (Score:3, Informative)
When someone submits a comment more than three or four lines long, run it through a gzip or similar compression routine. If the compression ratio exceeds 80% or so, that's how you can tell it's ASCII art or otherwise "lame."
Whatever you're doing now isn't working, and never has. This will be much more effective, especially given the limited character set you support.
You're welcome, no charge this time.
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Ya, and using ". . ." with no spaces between the periods triggers Slashdot's Early Whining System. With the spaces, no problemo.
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... is fine, that is an ellipsis. If you add a . it triggers the lameness filter.
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LOL! Interesting comment! I'd have to try it out in the fields but it kind of makes sense at first glance!
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That's the whole problem. The swastikas aren't made from repeating characters, but repeating patterns. A simple check for repeating characters is useful only if you want to piss off legitimate posters.
The shitpost that I replied to compresses to 3% of its original size using an ordinary .zip utility. English text usually compresses by 50% to 70%. There is no way a legitimate comment will compress to 3% of its original size.
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It's perfectly reasonable for Blue Origin to be unhappy with NASA's decision, though that doesn't necessarily mean that they have a valid legal complaint.
Re:Redacted version below.. (Score:4, Informative)
Not quite. NASA has been saying during the entire process that "They hope to be able to give the award to two companies, but that depends on having the budget to do so, and they reserve the right to award it to just one, or even not award it at all, depending on the budget available and the quality of the applicants."
And in any case, there was more than two proposals, so even if NASA was legally obligated to select & fund two of them, there was still no guarantee that Blue Origin would have got one. At this point, this whole thing just seems like Blue Origin desperately trying to starve a competitor of funding, and has nothing to do with whether or not Blue Origin should have actually been selected.
Either that, or it is a prestige thing, and they can't bear the idea that someone else might have a better proposal than they do.
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Yes, there were three companies/teams, so there's no guarantee that Blue Origin would have gotten the second contract. That's why I said that Blue Origin has a legitimate reason to complain about the change in the process, even though they don't have a valid legal compl
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When the process says NASA may only award one, then they get to only award one. Doesn't matter how much insinuation or hopes anyone has. Blue Origin has more than enough lawyers to understand that all the talk in the world is meaningless compared to what is written on the competition documents. Hence why their previous challenge was thrown out, their next one will get thrown out, and all they will accomplish is delay the inevitable.
I am *very* glad that Musk is rich enough to keep things going and SpaceX is
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I used to launch a lot of Estes rockets (Score:5, Interesting)
And I think I have just as valid a claim to NASA money as Bezos, based on how close we have come to orbit.
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This is what Bezos said in his redacted lawsuit. He has built the Estes Lunar Lander and has launched it on a C11-7 motor and it landed great with the cheap plastic parachute.
There is also a bit in the redaction where it states that if the Judges does not rule in Blue Origins favour then Bezos would sit in a corner of a room and cry.
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There is also a bit in the redaction where it states that if the Judges does not rule in Blue Origins favour then Bezos would sit in a corner of a room and cry.
Can we get that on pay-per-view? I love watching multi-millionaires / billionaires cry like children that lost their favorite toy. Some Kind of Monster is my favorite movie.
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Not quite.
It must be remembered that a Lunar Lander requires much less delta-V than a launcher from Earth to LEO.
Realistically, that suborbital vehicle they used recently had enough delta-V to land on the moon, and probably had enough to land and then return to lunar orbit.
That said, no, NASA isn't obligated to give Blue Origin money just because Bezos wants some....
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"probably"
If Bezos is will to ride it to the moon, and "probably" back then fine.
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***sighs***
I said "probably" because I don't know how much delta-V the rocket actually has. But I can make a decent guesstimate because it managed to go straight up 100+km, and then do a controlled landing. Which puts it, assuming no atmospheric drag, just about capable of landing on the moon and returning to orbit.
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Elon Musk is Iron Man. Jeff Bezos is ... (Score:1, Funny)
Photo from court:
https://arc-anglerfish-arc2-pr... [amazonaws.com]
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I thought for sure that link would point to this picture:
https://images.app.goo.gl/ko3T... [app.goo.gl]
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That's Bezos in 20 years ( and still in court, not orbit ).
When rich people lose, they sue somebody. (Score:2)
Experience (Score:1)
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It's funny how everyone seems to forget that Blue Origin is just the whiney bat boy on the team with the serious military contractor big boys.
Public Record (Score:1)
THe lawsuit is public record. The judge should be shot in the head for its incompetence.