The company Blue Origin, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, criticized the Starship spacecraft of Elon Musk's SpaceX company. It was to him that NASA gave preference when concluding a contract for the creation of a lunar module.
On its website, Blue Origin has created a section dedicated to the lunar program, where it uses infographics to prove the advantages of its own project in terms of security and reliability.
At the same time, the SpaceX project, as noted, is associated with an "unprecedented number" of technologies, developments and operations that will be used for the first time only when the Starship spacecraft lands on the Moon.
"Lunar Starship: extremely difficult and risky-NATIONAL TEAM: safe, almost risk-free and fast," follows from the subheadings to the material.
On July 30, the US General Control Administration (GAO) [...] announced its disagreement with the protest of Blue Origin and Dynetics regarding the decision of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to sign a contract for the development of the lander with only one company — SpaceX. The congressional control body considered that NASA had the right to conclude only one contract, and not two, as the protesters believe.
Elon Musk, in turn, spoke positively about the GAO's decision.
A representative of Blue Origin also told CNBC that the program for the development of the lunar lander requires competition, and "now, not later." And he called the scheme with several contractors the best solution for NASA and the United States.
On July 27, Bezos in an open letter addressed the leadership of NASA with a proposal to allocate $2 billion to the space agency in exchange for the participation of his space company in the preparation of missions to the Moon. In particular, it was assumed that Blue Origin would develop a lander for the Artemis lunar program.
In April, Elon Musk's SpaceX was announced the winner of the NASA competition for the development of a system for landing a person on the surface of the Moon, the contract amount was $2.89 billion. Blue Origin and Dynetics also participated in the competition, after losing, they filed a complaint against the management's decision.
NASA explained its decision with limited funds and the fact that Musk's offer was the most profitable. According to CNBC, Blue Origin estimated its services at $5.9 billion, and Dynetics-at $8.5 billion.
