(Move to proper thread if there is one)

Jeff Bezo's Blue Origin has released an open letter, saying that they want to forfeit 2 billion in NASA payments for getting the lunar lander contract.

https://www.engadget.com/jeff-bezos-nas ... 22642.html

Jesus effing... I thought that laws prevent companies from selling products and services at a loss when they have been produced with these losses already in mind. Usually, companies can only sell something at a loss when they have to liquidate existing products they originally wanted to sell at a profit (e.g. electronic components that became outdated, perishable food...). There is a fiduciary duty towards the investors and stockholders.

The analysis I've read is that what screwed Blue Origin up is that NASA wanted the bidders themselves to invest in their Lunar landers, with NASA being a paying customer, but ideally not the ONLY customer.

SpaceX was willing to play by NASA's requirements, as they were already investing in their Starship, and thus having NASA as one of potentially many customers made sense for them and for NASA.

flyingturtle wrote:

I thought that laws prevent companies from selling products and services at a loss when they have been produced with these losses already in mind.

And that it does. However, the law also allows for fix price contract and if cost overruns occurs it allows the contractor to eat the loss - KC-46 anyone.

The law also allows for joint ventures between NASA and private firms where the privates put in development money to gain experience an IT that comes out of the research.

I don't see a problem if Space-X continue with the contract that it "won" and Blue Origin pay to tag along with their own development.

bt

It seems like Blue Origin is just not giving up even after having their GAO protest denied, and the full GAO decision was released:

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/statu ... 6757595141

Blue Origin just not giving up on the HLS program. Says the GAO’s decision highlights issues that “will prevent the U.S. from landing on the moon” and says it is concerned about SpaceX needing 16 launches, with limited flight readiness reviews, to get Starship to the moon.

The GAO's decision is here:

https://www.gao.gov/assets/b-419783.pdf

In short, the GAO found that NASA picked the vendor with the most technically ready, well-managed, lowest-cost option, and that NASA was justified in only picking one vendor because of budgetary issues.

In case Blue Origin doesn't realize this, but the GAO's decision is final, and throwing a (very) public tantrum because you didn’t get your way is not a good look.

ThePointblank wrote:

In case Blue Origin doesn't realize this, but the GAO's decision is final, and throwing a (very) public tantrum because you didn’t get your way is not a good look.

Maybe, just maybe, they should start actually flinging stuff into space if they want to be taken seriously...

Less gradatim, more ferociter, Jeff.

Now it is escalating to veiled threats of a lawsuit from Blue Origin:

https://twitter.com/wapodavenport/statu ... 1461832715

A Blue Origin spokesperson I spoke with today left open the possibility of taking the HLS fight to the Court of Federal Claims and Bob Smith said in a statement to the Post that BO is “hopeful that NASA will take advantage of our offer” to waive $2 billion in development fees.

Yeah, that's going to go over well for Blue Origin...

What on earth is going on over at Blue Origin for them to be behaving so childish? They are acting like their very survival depends on this contract, so they'll do whatever it takes to grab the contract, even if it is underhanded.

ThePointblank wrote:

They are acting like their very survival depends on this contract

Perhaps it does... Just because Bezos is worth a lot doesn't mean he has a large amount of readies to chuck in BO's direction.

SamYeager2016 wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

They are acting like their very survival depends on this contract

Perhaps it does... Just because Bezos is worth a lot doesn't mean he has a large amount of readies to chuck in BO's direction.

Hasn't his now ex trouble and strife got half of his money?
Though I think it is a pride thing, it might be he really thought the BO led bid was the 'natural' choice.

GDB wrote:

SamYeager2016 wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

They are acting like their very survival depends on this contract

Perhaps it does... Just because Bezos is worth a lot doesn't mean he has a large amount of readies to chuck in BO's direction.

Hasn't his now ex trouble and strife got half of his money?
Though I think it is a pride thing, it might be he really thought the BO led bid was the 'natural' choice.

She should start her own rocket venture, SAMs designed to shoot down Blue Origin launches.

Agreed on the pride/confidence angle. I think BO got so caught up in how great their own proposal was and how complex SpaceX was, that someone high enough to argue the point just can’t fathom how they didn’t get selected.

Which of course makes sense to seemingly everyone but them. It’s not 1962 and NASA isn’t trying to build a LM from scratch. Certain companies have more relevant experience and technology that lends itself to building a lunar lander. And as it were, that company isn’t BO.

And Blue Origin has sued NASA:
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2 ... nar-lander

Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin brought its fight against NASA’s Moon program to federal court on Monday, doubling down on accusations that the agency wrongly evaluated its lunar lander proposal. The complaint escalates a monthslong crusade by the company to win a chunk of lunar lander funds that was only given to its rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX and comes weeks after Blue Origin’s first protest over the Moon program was squashed by a federal watchdog agency. Now in court, Blue Origin’s challenge could trigger another pause to SpaceX’s contract and a new lengthy delay to NASA’s race to land astronauts on the Moon by 2024.

This isn't going to end well for Blue Origin, I think. Eric Berger on Twitter had this to speculate as to why Blue Origin is doing this:

https://twitter.com/SciGuySpace/status/ ... 17701?s=19

So why is Blue Origin doing this? Three theories I've heard:

• CEO Bob Smith has been told he is fired unless he wins an HLS contract
• Jeff Bezos is employing a "Burn the Ships" strategy
• Bezos is counting on Congress to bail him out

FGITD wrote:

She should start her own rocket venture, SAMs designed to shoot down Blue Origin launches.

I would pay real money to see that fireworks show...

Again, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has an excellent scoop as to how employees over at Blue Origin and NASA are feeling, and it appears that the recent actions of senior management at Blue Origin has generated a ton of ill-will:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/08 ... test-nasa/

Blue Origin's actions in court—in addition to its ham-handed release of infographics that seek to denigrate SpaceX but have been widely mocked within the space community—are having a negative effect on both the company's relationships with the US government and its own employees.

"They will never get a real government contract after this," one NASA source predicted, following the lawsuit filing. The sentiment may be similar at the US Space Force, which is frustrated by delays in the delivery of BE-4 rocket engines for United Launch Alliance's Vulcan rocket.

One user who identified as a Blue Origin employee took to reddit on Monday to express the frustrations of some, if not a majority, of people working at the Washington state-based company. "I personally believe that the vast majority of the company's employees do NOT agree with the infographics and other PR stunts that the company's leadership has been pushing," the employee wrote. "I have not met a single one that does feel this way. In fact, most of us are rather disgusted and embarrassed to be represented in this manner."

There are concerns that Blue Origin's aggressive attitude toward the Human Landing System contract will drive key employees away as morale drops. On Monday, for example, a senior engineer on Blue Origin's Human Landing System project, Nitin Arora, announced on LinkedIn that he is leaving the company to work at SpaceX. "Next stop, SpaceX! I am incredibly excited and looking forward to it," he wrote.

We could see an exodus of employees from Blue Origin towards other companies, such as SpaceX, Boeing, Relativity, and Firefly, which could already delay even further work that Blue Origin is already under contract for. Not good.

ThePointblank wrote:

Again, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has an excellent scoop as to how employees over at Blue Origin and NASA are feeling, and it appears that the recent actions of senior management at Blue Origin has generated a ton of ill-will:

We could see an exodus of employees from Blue Origin towards other companies, such as SpaceX, Boeing, Relativity, and Firefly, which could already delay even further work that Blue Origin is already under contract for. Not good.

I say it in half my space related posts on here-I try not to be biased, I want space progress and everyone to succeed. But it’s getting real hard to support Blue Origin. They seem to be of the belief that if it’s not them doing the job, then no one should.

It’s a hard position to argue with the government that they need your contract as it’s more feasible, while another government agency is currently waiting impatiently because you can’t even provide PART of a booster on time. Frankly, I’ve had enough of them. The modern space age can move on without them, shouldn’t be too hard given that they have barely even touched space as is.

I saw the Reddit post cited in that article. Interesting insight. A lot of the engineers who left SpaceX for the more relaxed life at Blue Origin are apparently looking to go back to SpaceX because they value their work actually leading to something tangible. At X you have engineers who saw their project go from idea to drawing board to launch within a matter of a few years. Not suing the competition. And beyond them, like the article mentioned, there are more than a few other companies out there that I’m sure would love to grab engineers

FGITD wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

Again, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has an excellent scoop as to how employees over at Blue Origin and NASA are feeling, and it appears that the recent actions of senior management at Blue Origin has generated a ton of ill-will:

We could see an exodus of employees from Blue Origin towards other companies, such as SpaceX, Boeing, Relativity, and Firefly, which could already delay even further work that Blue Origin is already under contract for. Not good.

I say it in half my space related posts on here-I try not to be biased, I want space progress and everyone to succeed. But it’s getting real hard to support Blue Origin. They seem to be of the belief that if it’s not them doing the job, then no one should.

It’s a hard position to argue with the government that they need your contract as it’s more feasible, while another government agency is currently waiting impatiently because you can’t even provide PART of a booster on time. Frankly, I’ve had enough of them. The modern space age can move on without them, shouldn’t be too hard given that they have barely even touched space as is.

I saw the Reddit post cited in that article. Interesting insight. A lot of the engineers who left SpaceX for the more relaxed life at Blue Origin are apparently looking to go back to SpaceX because they value their work actually leading to something tangible. At X you have engineers who saw their project go from idea to drawing board to launch within a matter of a few years. Not suing the competition. And beyond them, like the article mentioned, there are more than a few other companies out there that I’m sure would love to grab engineers

Or, already started to.

A lead HLS engineer over at Blue Origin updated his Linkedin page to show he's left Blue Origin to go work at SpaceX:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/ur ... 003886080/

Nitin Arora

Mission Architecture and Integration Lead, Human Landing System at BLUE ORIGIN
16h

Friday (August 13th) was my last day at BLUE ORIGIN. It was one hell of a ride working on the lunar program. Really honored that I got a chance to work with and lead incredibly smart, passionate people over last three years. Special thanks to everyone who I worked with daily. I will miss you all.

Next stop, SpaceX ! I am incredibly excited and looking forward to it.

That's not good news for Blue Origin... and I won't be surprised if an exodus wave starts.

ThePointblank wrote:

FGITD wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

Again, Eric Berger at Ars Technica has an excellent scoop as to how employees over at Blue Origin and NASA are feeling, and it appears that the recent actions of senior management at Blue Origin has generated a ton of ill-will:

We could see an exodus of employees from Blue Origin towards other companies, such as SpaceX, Boeing, Relativity, and Firefly, which could already delay even further work that Blue Origin is already under contract for. Not good.

I say it in half my space related posts on here-I try not to be biased, I want space progress and everyone to succeed. But it’s getting real hard to support Blue Origin. They seem to be of the belief that if it’s not them doing the job, then no one should.

It’s a hard position to argue with the government that they need your contract as it’s more feasible, while another government agency is currently waiting impatiently because you can’t even provide PART of a booster on time. Frankly, I’ve had enough of them. The modern space age can move on without them, shouldn’t be too hard given that they have barely even touched space as is.

I saw the Reddit post cited in that article. Interesting insight. A lot of the engineers who left SpaceX for the more relaxed life at Blue Origin are apparently looking to go back to SpaceX because they value their work actually leading to something tangible. At X you have engineers who saw their project go from idea to drawing board to launch within a matter of a few years. Not suing the competition. And beyond them, like the article mentioned, there are more than a few other companies out there that I’m sure would love to grab engineers

Or, already started to.

A lead HLS engineer over at Blue Origin updated his Linkedin page to show he's left Blue Origin to go work at SpaceX:

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/ur ... 003886080/

Nitin Arora

Mission Architecture and Integration Lead, Human Landing System at BLUE ORIGIN
16h

Friday (August 13th) was my last day at BLUE ORIGIN. It was one hell of a ride working on the lunar program. Really honored that I got a chance to work with and lead incredibly smart, passionate people over last three years. Special thanks to everyone who I worked with daily. I will miss you all.

Next stop, SpaceX ! I am incredibly excited and looking forward to it.

That's not good news for Blue Origin... and I won't be surprised if an exodus wave starts.

Wow that's pretty telling, and I really admire people like that who are able to do whatever it takes to pursue their passions in life. I guess it helps when you're literally a qualified rocket scientist LOL.

Having said that, Bezos and BE need to put up or shut up, preferably BEFORE they start demanding huge government contracts. They haven't put a single thing into LEO much less deep space, and SIGNIFICANT government contracts are at risk through ULA thanks to BE's complete ineptitude when it comes to delivering an engine they've been working on for a VERY long time. I'd automatically assume the US govt and their entities are a bit concerned at this point, and rightly so.

Even people who aren't really "in the know" about this stuff, realize that the Raptor is not only more capable (and already has sea-level and vacuum derivatives that are somewhat proven. I really have no clue why they seem unwilling to commit to the current BE-4. Something tells me they're facing some serious technical issues (likely related to longer-duration burns that orbital-class rockets like the Vulcan would require) that they're keeping INCREDIBLY quiet about for obvious reasons.

I suppose really that someone like Bezos, for all his 'aw shucks, I started Amazon in my garage', while admirable to be successful from there in itself, is as we have seen with his other businesses, a monopolist.
Like the sociopath who gave the world Facebook.
But it's one thing to be very ambitious, as is Musk of course, quite another to have started his space business around the same time as Musk did but to have so little progress to show in comparison, then not only only sue the agency who you need to realize your Lunar ambitions and now to do a ham fisted attempt at bad mouthing Space X.
As they said a lot in The Sopranos 'you got some balls, y'know that?'

GDB wrote:

I suppose really that someone like Bezos, for all his 'aw shucks, I started Amazon in my garage', while admirable to be successful from there in itself, is as we have seen with his other businesses, a monopolist.
Like the sociopath who gave the world Facebook.
But it's one thing to be very ambitious, as is Musk of course, quite another to have started his space business around the same time as Musk did but to have so little progress to show in comparison, then not only only sue the agency who you need to realize your Lunar ambitions and now to do a ham fisted attempt at bad mouthing Space X.
As they said a lot in The Sopranos 'you got some balls, y'know that?'

True, he's alienating himself from everyone in the industry (including ULA by the way) purely due to ego. The whole thing is just strange; "if I threaten enough people, or maybe even throw money at them, I'll get what I want... because that's how my entire life has worked!"

For all the comparisons that people draw between Bezos and Musk, the two have polar opposite personalities. I hope you all have seen the 3-part series of personal interviews and facility tours that Musk gave to the Everyday Astronaut on YouTube. He's such a humble guy, and you can see him thinking years ahead every time he stares off into the distance for a second. It's not about the money for him, he welcomes a challenge - even some of the greatest challenges mankind has tackled before. In contrast, Bezos just wants his money, monopoly, and ego.

estorilm wrote:

GDB wrote:

I suppose really that someone like Bezos, for all his 'aw shucks, I started Amazon in my garage', while admirable to be successful from there in itself, is as we have seen with his other businesses, a monopolist.
Like the sociopath who gave the world Facebook.
But it's one thing to be very ambitious, as is Musk of course, quite another to have started his space business around the same time as Musk did but to have so little progress to show in comparison, then not only only sue the agency who you need to realize your Lunar ambitions and now to do a ham fisted attempt at bad mouthing Space X.
As they said a lot in The Sopranos 'you got some balls, y'know that?'

True, he's alienating himself from everyone in the industry (including ULA by the way) purely due to ego. The whole thing is just strange; "if I threaten enough people, or maybe even throw money at them, I'll get what I want... because that's how my entire life has worked!"

For all the comparisons that people draw between Bezos and Musk, the two have polar opposite personalities. I hope you all have seen the 3-part series of personal interviews and facility tours that Musk gave to the Everyday Astronaut on YouTube. He's such a humble guy, and you can see him thinking years ahead every time he stares off into the distance for a second. It's not about the money for him, he welcomes a challenge - even some of the greatest challenges mankind has tackled before. In contrast, Bezos just wants his money, monopoly, and ego.

Yes, I've seen Tim Dodd go from Russian spacesuited eccentric amateur, to still an amateur but great and enthusiastic reporter with incredible access, to Musk, to the former head of NASA when still in post and not forgetting Peter Beck at Rocketlab.
They see a kindred spirit and while it does no PR harm for the companies and agency, typically corporate PR is more bite sized and simplified, not as in Tim's latest series, over two and a half hours of yes some visual spectacle but mostly crunchy engineering detail.

Musk is not only a CEO, he is like it or not, that dreaded word, a celebrity, he's made his missteps in the past outside of SpaceX but as Starbase and Starship get bigger in every sense of the word, we will see, have really already, a lot less of that.
How many high profile CEO's admit on camera that they are not sure, might be wrong on that, it might blow up and when posed a question he does not know and now wants to, texts the Engineer who will?

Somehow I doubt Tim will get an interview, much less like the ones above, with Bezos.

GDB wrote:

estorilm wrote:

GDB wrote:

I suppose really that someone like Bezos, for all his 'aw shucks, I started Amazon in my garage', while admirable to be successful from there in itself, is as we have seen with his other businesses, a monopolist.
Like the sociopath who gave the world Facebook.
But it's one thing to be very ambitious, as is Musk of course, quite another to have started his space business around the same time as Musk did but to have so little progress to show in comparison, then not only only sue the agency who you need to realize your Lunar ambitions and now to do a ham fisted attempt at bad mouthing Space X.
As they said a lot in The Sopranos 'you got some balls, y'know that?'

True, he's alienating himself from everyone in the industry (including ULA by the way) purely due to ego. The whole thing is just strange; "if I threaten enough people, or maybe even throw money at them, I'll get what I want... because that's how my entire life has worked!"

For all the comparisons that people draw between Bezos and Musk, the two have polar opposite personalities. I hope you all have seen the 3-part series of personal interviews and facility tours that Musk gave to the Everyday Astronaut on YouTube. He's such a humble guy, and you can see him thinking years ahead every time he stares off into the distance for a second. It's not about the money for him, he welcomes a challenge - even some of the greatest challenges mankind has tackled before. In contrast, Bezos just wants his money, monopoly, and ego.

Yes, I've seen Tim Dodd go from Russian spacesuited eccentric amateur, to still an amateur but great and enthusiastic reporter with incredible access, to Musk, to the former head of NASA when still in post and not forgetting Peter Beck at Rocketlab.
They see a kindred spirit and while it does no PR harm for the companies and agency, typically corporate PR is more bite sized and simplified, not as in Tim's latest series, over two and a half hours of yes some visual spectacle but mostly crunchy engineering detail.

Musk is not only a CEO, he is like it or not, that dreaded word, a celebrity, he's made his missteps in the past outside of SpaceX but as Starbase and Starship get bigger in every sense of the word, we will see, have really already, a lot less of that.
How many high profile CEO's admit on camera that they are not sure, might be wrong on that, it might blow up and when posed a question he does not know and now wants to, texts the Engineer who will?

Somehow I doubt Tim will get an interview, much less like the ones above, with Bezos.

SpaceX is clever in that they are very PR savvy. Different eras, but NASA couldn’t get people to care about the last space shuttle launch, and much different era, but to the same degree, after Apollo 11 they lost the audience. SpaceX manages to get tens of thousands to watch a satellite launch at 3am. Allegedly more people watched their livestream of the static fire done the same day Bezos went up than watched the BO actual launch.

They let people in to their world. Watch the Falcon Heavy test fight. There was a crowd inside their launch control center literally cheering the boosters down. People sit in the side of the road and watch starships get built and roll by. It’s a very common-person attitude, come on down y’all we’re launching a rocket today!

Giving access to Tim Dodd was genius, as he’s basically become the patron Saint of the amateur space nerd. He’s as along for the ride with SpaceX as their own people are now. He gets the good publicity and audience-136 million views on his channel, including the non-X content. I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk sends Tim up someday.

GDB wrote:

Like the sociopath who gave the world Facebook.
But it's one thing to be very ambitious, as is Musk of course, quite another to have started his space business around the same time as Musk did but to have so little progress to show in comparison, then not only only sue the agency who you need to realize your Lunar ambitions and now to do a ham fisted attempt at bad mouthing Space X'

Yeah, pretty much. It's really not fair to compare Bezos with Musk, Bezoz and Facebookguy, yes. They hat an idea that took off but that was that. Now they are rich guys who can afford expensive toys, and Blue Origin is really little more than an expensive toy. It goes straight up and falls back down, that's it. They are so far away from putting anything in orbit, let alone reach the moon, that I don't get why the even entered the bidding process for the lunar lander in the first place. Sure, you can make anything happen if you hire good engineers and throw crazy amounts of money at them, but anyone can do that.

Musk on the other hand is a nerd through and through (in a positive way of course). It's such a delight watching him stroll through starbase and commenting what's going on. He probably knows the purpose of every single screw/valve/etc on the vehicles as well as the support structures - not least because he most likely was involved in designing most of them himself!

So from a NASA perspective this entire show should be a total no-brainer really.

GDB wrote:

SamYeager2016 wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

They are acting like their very survival depends on this contract

Perhaps it does... Just because Bezos is worth a lot doesn't mean he has a large amount of readies to chuck in BO's direction.

Hasn't his now ex trouble and strife got half of his money?
Though I think it is a pride thing, it might be he really thought the BO led bid was the 'natural' choice.

She got 38 billion, he has recovered from the loss already.

However he left the CEO position of Amazon, to concentrate on Blue Origin. He has put billions into it, much more than Elon (who basically put nothing into SpaceX because he was not a billionaire at the time).

To him it's something very personal.

And I understand, as long before Bezos and Musk were known, when I was a teen and Bill Gates had been the richest man forever, I thought : "if I was him I would fund myself a space program".

So my takeaway is this : if Bezos/Blue Origin believe they're onto a winner, have a revolutionary engine, etc., go for it, fund it entirely, and prove you're better. If you can't sell it to NASA, maybe you can sell it to other governments, or other billionaires, Lunar tourism anyone ?

I have no doubt that SpaceX would have continued with or without the contract, and it has much bigger ambitions, too.

It appears there is an exodus of high level talent from Blue Origin, with at least 16 senior and key people leaving the company since Bezos' flight this summer:

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/20/jeff-be ... fight.html

Jeff Bezos flew to space late last month, but his company has lost top talent since the billionaire space founder came back to Earth.

At least 16 key leaders and senior engineers have left Blue Origin this summer, CNBC has learned, with many moving on in the weeks after Bezos’ spaceflight.

Named engineers that are leaving are as follows:
Nitin Arora - Heading to SpaceX
Lauren Lyons - Heading to Firefly Aerospace as COO

Other key people leaving with their Blue Origin job titles:
Steve Bennet - New Shepard senior VP
Jeff Ashby - Chief of mission assurance
Scott Jacobs - National Security Sales Director
Bob Ess - New Glenn Senior Director
Bill Scammell - New Glenn Senior Finance Manager
Christopher Payne - Senior Manager of Production Testing
Nate Chapman - New Shepard Technical Project Manager
Dave Sanderson - Senior Propulsion Design Engineer
Rachel Forman - Senior HLS Human Factors Engineer
Jack Nelson - BE-4 Controller Lead Integration and Testing Engineer
Huong Vo - New Shepard Lead Avionics Software Engineer
Aaron Wang - BE-7 Avionics Hardware Engineer
Rex Gu - Propulsion Engineer, and
Gerry Hudak - Rocket Engine Development Engineer

CNBC is noting that there are reports of poor employee satisfaction, looking at their Glassdoor reviews; just 15% of Blue Origin employees approve of CEO Bob Smith — versus 91% for Elon Musk at SpaceX or 77% for Tory Bruno at United Launch Alliance. Blue Origin has recently paid all of their full-time employees a $10,000 no strings attached cash bonus to their employees, likely as part of an effort to entice people to stay.

This appears to be rather extraordinary turnover of Blue Origin's senior ranks, with many of the departures related to certain projects that are important for the future of the company. Not good for Blue Origin.

Aesma wrote:

However he left the CEO position of Amazon, to concentrate on Blue Origin. He has put billions into it, much more than Elon (who basically put nothing into SpaceX because he was not a billionaire at the time).

To him it's something very personal.

Not really accurate. The money Bezos put into BO is pocket change for him. Elon put every penny he had into his companies. Musk going all out compared to Jeff having an expensive hobby is a big hint as to the difference between the two.

Well it's just that Elon exited Paypal early, with "only" several hundreds millions, while Bezos stuck with Amazon until it became one of the largest companies on the planet.

Yes after that Elon took more risk, but Bezos didn't need to do the same. I just looked up his wikipedia page and there is this : "In his graduation speech, Bezos told the audience he dreamed of the day when mankind would colonize space. A local newspaper quoted his intention "to get all people off the earth and see it turned into a huge national park"."

So clearly Bezos and Musk have similar ambitions in this matter.

If Bezos is taking a safer approach to things, it could pay off in the long term, after all we want space exploration to be safe. Remember Musk talking about sending people to Mars with no return ticket ?

Considering how much the US budget isn't balanced these days, I could totally see BO getting some funding on top of SpaceX, the "competition" argument holds some water, and experience has shown that having all eggs in one basket can backfire (Space shuttle groundings). Now Bezos is clearly doing it the wrong way right now, throwing a tantrum, alienating everyone.

And I ultimately agree with your "pocket money" argument, which is why I said Bezos should spend whatever money is needed to prove he's onto something.

However money might not be enough, I'm assuming all the senior people leaving right now had a good salary, yet they're leaving anyway.

In what I’m sure will go down as being a great day in Blue Origin history, yesterday it was announced that ULA’s Vulcan rocket is being delayed again because…Blue Origin once again cannot meet the engine delivery deadline.

And to really seal their reputation, some NASA chiefs came out and said the original lunar landing goal is now almost certain to be missed because the lander work must be stopped while Blue Origin gets to play with their lawsuit.

I used to criticize them but patiently await their results from the slow progress method. But now rather than accelerating, they’ve only managed to slow down other space agencies/companies.

I’ve had enough of them. Industry doesn’t need this nonsense in it

It appears Blue Origin is a major player in deforestation because they are in the middle of trying to drown NASA in paperwork related to their court battle:

https://twitter.com/joroulette/status/1 ... 09602?s=19

NASA "reluctantly agrees" to extend the stay on SpaceX's HLS contract by a week bc the 7GB+ of case-related docs in the Blue Origin suit keeps causing DOJ's Adobe software to crash and key NASA staff were busy at Space Symposium this week, causing delays to a filing deadline. lol https://t.co/HcTHsTAUfZ

Under NASA's voluntary pause to SpaceX's contract — which it only did if Blue Origin agreed to move litigation quickly — the end date was November 1st. Now it looks like it'll be November 8th. https://t.co/kQhl93q0Yr

DOJ lawyers say the size of the case material from parties in Blue Origin's lawsuit is "extraordinarily voluminous, consisting of hundreds of individual documents and over seven gigabytes of data." They're asking the court if they can submit it all on a DVD instead

Update: Judge grants the DVD plan and the DOJ's new deadline to file case docs from Aug. 27th to Sept 3rd, but keeps the rest of the schedule as is. So SpaceX's stay is not extended to Nov 8th - it remains Nov. 1st. https://t.co/xvjrDfS73o

I'm sure who is not leaving Blue Origin's payroll are the lawyers...

Aesma wrote:

I'm sure who is not leaving Blue Origin's payroll are the lawyers...

Shhhh, just don't tell them that gravity has no legal basis... with that natural "law" overturned, Bezos might put something into orbit.

More drama at Blue Origin, with a letter written by a former communications director and signed by 20 current and former employees alleging a toxic work culture, with safety concerns, sexism, stifling of professional dissent:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/09 ... e-company/

A former communications executive at Blue Origin and 20 other current and former employees have written a blistering essay about the company's culture, citing safety concerns, sexist attitudes, and a lack of commitment to the planet's future.

"In our experience, Blue Origin’s culture sits on a foundation that ignores the plight of our planet, turns a blind eye to sexism, is not sufficiently attuned to safety concerns, and silences those who seek to correct wrongs," the essay authors write. "That’s not the world we should be creating here on Earth, and certainly not as our springboard to a better one."

Published Thursday on the Lioness website, the essay is signed publicly by only Alexandra Abrams, who led employee communications for the company until she was terminated in 2019. The other signatories, a majority of whom were engineers, declined to publicly disclose their names because they did not want to jeopardize employment at Blue Origin or harm their prospects in the aerospace industry for other jobs.

If you read the letter, they make it explicitly clear that these people do not feel safe flying on a Blue Origin vehicle, and the level of allegations of sexism and a toxic work environment detailed is very concerning.

Gotta wonder how on Earth is Blue Origin going to survive as a company if talented people keep fleeing the company, and nobody is willing to go work for them.

FGITD wrote:

I’ve had enough of them. Industry doesn’t need this nonsense in it

You finally see the light.

From the other Bezos thread I wrote this statement about their sub orbital hop.

RJMAZ wrote:

Blue origin is a joke of a company. Stunts like this are meant to bring in new investment to continue the scam for a few more years before everyone loses their money.

bikerthai wrote:

Criticizing a company without knowing it's mission statement, it's business plan, or the people who work there make make a joke out of your statement.

FGITD wrote:

Absolutely, what a misguided statement.

It seems my statement is dead on target. I didn't need to know the people who work there as everyone in the aerospace industry knows they are toxic. I love how NASA tried to hint this in their management criteria for the moon lander. Blue origin "very good". SpaceX "outstanding". They can't just say poor, average like the good old days.

In fairness, I’ll admit that I gave BO a little too much credit given that they’ve proven themselves to be worthless.

But the quotes truth remains to be seen. Who knows if they’ll lose everyone’s money? Suppose the new (perpetually delayed) engines turn out to be a wild success? Or the New Glenn booster proves wildly successful?

Sure, it’s likely true that they won’t be going far, but it’s still a little early to celebrate their downfall

I wonder how much of the discontent and lack of results can be pinned on BO's highly unpopular CEO who may simply be be unable to manage the company effectively or whether Bezos just tried to emulate the Amazon corporate culture and the way it treats its employees at his space pet project, only to find that you can't treat highly qualified and sought-after engineers and technicians like you do warehouse employees or delivery drivers...

Either way, the whole venture looks like a horrible failure in the making.
A fairly deep re-evaluation and restructuring seems in order if it's going to survive, and I'd start by getting rid of Smith.

Eric Berger with yet another well written article about how Blue Origin hired a consultant years ago to evaluate SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses and to determine where was Blue Origin struggling in their attempts at competing with SpaceX:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10 ... ch-spacex/

About three years ago, Blue Origin officials knew they were behind, failing to deliver on their founder's grandiose vision.

With Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos had long talked about building a world-class space transportation company and had even gone so far as to trademark "Build a Road to Space." But despite being nearly two decades old, Blue Origin had not built a road to space, nor even launched an orbital rocket.

Meanwhile, the rocket company founded by Bezos' rival, Elon Musk, had establishing itself as the most dominant launch company in the world. By the fall of 2018, SpaceX was well on its way to launching a record 21 rockets in a single year, had debuted the Falcon Heavy, and was starting to seriously reuse first stage boosters.

"Blue is kind of lazy compared to SpaceX," one Blue Origin executive admitted in an internal memo in late 2018.

These were not easy facts for Blue Origin's leadership to contemplate. But they realized that if Blue Origin was going to become a great launch company, it should learn from the best. So in the late summer of 2018, as Bob Smith marked his first anniversary as chief executive of Blue Origin, he hired a management consulting firm called Avascent to assess SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses.

Basically, from the leaked screenshots of the report, Blue Origin identified a couple of key strength SpaceX has that Blue Origin needs to catch up on in order for them to compete:

1. Customer Focus. SpaceX spends a lot of effort on satisfying customers, seeking to provide desirable services at a lower cost. They work with their customer to develop the best, cheapest solution for the customer's needs, not think of the customer as a nuisance and that they know better.

2. Focus on Cost Control. SpaceX is extremely good at cost control at all stages of development, seeking to minimize costs from the design stage to manufacturing. SpaceX thinks about costs during manufacturing during the design stage, to ensure components are easy and cheap to make during production, and not worry about designing the best solution bar none.

3. Vertical Integration. This ties into cost control, but SpaceX is famously vertically integrated, with the bulk of their rocket being built in house, and some components farmed out to other manufacturers.

4. Talent Management. SpaceX is extremely good at attracting young talent at lower salaries, due to a better vision and better overall compensation.

5. Getting the Most Out of Their Talent. SpaceX is known for pushing their employees to work long hours, while in contrast, Blue Origin is far more relaxed, even when deadlines are fast approaching, and they need as many hands on deck to help push projects through.

6. Iterative Design. SpaceX is well known for it's iterative design process, where they spend more time building and testing, and less time studying and designing problems. SpaceX is more than happy to have test articles blow up on the test stand as long as they learn about what happened and how to fix it.

It's very telling that apparently, this report is a few years old, and very little progress has been made by Blue Origin to act on the input they received from a consultant. And it's equally interesting that the mere existence of this report, along with the senior management comments got leaked to a journalist at this time.

ThePointblank wrote:

Eric Berger with yet another well written article about how Blue Origin hired a consultant years ago to evaluate SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses and to determine where was Blue Origin struggling in their attempts at competing with SpaceX:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10 ... ch-spacex/

About three years ago, Blue Origin officials knew they were behind, failing to deliver on their founder's grandiose vision.

With Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos had long talked about building a world-class space transportation company and had even gone so far as to trademark "Build a Road to Space." But despite being nearly two decades old, Blue Origin had not built a road to space, nor even launched an orbital rocket.

Meanwhile, the rocket company founded by Bezos' rival, Elon Musk, had establishing itself as the most dominant launch company in the world. By the fall of 2018, SpaceX was well on its way to launching a record 21 rockets in a single year, had debuted the Falcon Heavy, and was starting to seriously reuse first stage boosters.

"Blue is kind of lazy compared to SpaceX," one Blue Origin executive admitted in an internal memo in late 2018.

These were not easy facts for Blue Origin's leadership to contemplate. But they realized that if Blue Origin was going to become a great launch company, it should learn from the best. So in the late summer of 2018, as Bob Smith marked his first anniversary as chief executive of Blue Origin, he hired a management consulting firm called Avascent to assess SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses.

Basically, from the leaked screenshots of the report, Blue Origin identified a couple of key strength SpaceX has that Blue Origin needs to catch up on in order for them to compete:

1. Customer Focus. SpaceX spends a lot of effort on satisfying customers, seeking to provide desirable services at a lower cost. They work with their customer to develop the best, cheapest solution for the customer's needs, not think of the customer as a nuisance and that they know better.

2. Focus on Cost Control. SpaceX is extremely good at cost control at all stages of development, seeking to minimize costs from the design stage to manufacturing. SpaceX thinks about costs during manufacturing during the design stage, to ensure components are easy and cheap to make during production, and not worry about designing the best solution bar none.

3. Vertical Integration. This ties into cost control, but SpaceX is famously vertically integrated, with the bulk of their rocket being built in house, and some components farmed out to other manufacturers.

4. Talent Management. SpaceX is extremely good at attracting young talent at lower salaries, due to a better vision and better overall compensation.

5. Getting the Most Out of Their Talent. SpaceX is known for pushing their employees to work long hours, while in contrast, Blue Origin is far more relaxed, even when deadlines are fast approaching, and they need as many hands on deck to help push projects through.

6. Iterative Design. SpaceX is well known for it's iterative design process, where they spend more time building and testing, and less time studying and designing problems. SpaceX is more than happy to have test articles blow up on the test stand as long as they learn about what happened and how to fix it.

It's very telling that apparently, this report is a few years old, and very little progress has been made by Blue Origin to act on the input they received from a consultant. And it's equally interesting that the mere existence of this report, along with the senior management comments got leaked to a journalist at this time.

To me, what is most interesting is this isn't just the consultant, this was put together from comments from the Blue Origin executive team. The consultant pulled the SpaceX "best of/best abilities" and then put it to the Blue Origin management team who then made the comments that then made the report to the Blue Origin president.

Tugg

Also gives me a good laugh that one of their takeaways is that they need to emulate the SpaceX treatment of customers, and now here we are, with them suing NASA and trying to block space exploration if it doesn’t involve them.

The whole company seems to be unraveling.

Tugger wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

Eric Berger with yet another well written article about how Blue Origin hired a consultant years ago to evaluate SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses and to determine where was Blue Origin struggling in their attempts at competing with SpaceX:

https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10 ... ch-spacex/

About three years ago, Blue Origin officials knew they were behind, failing to deliver on their founder's grandiose vision.

With Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos had long talked about building a world-class space transportation company and had even gone so far as to trademark "Build a Road to Space." But despite being nearly two decades old, Blue Origin had not built a road to space, nor even launched an orbital rocket.

Meanwhile, the rocket company founded by Bezos' rival, Elon Musk, had establishing itself as the most dominant launch company in the world. By the fall of 2018, SpaceX was well on its way to launching a record 21 rockets in a single year, had debuted the Falcon Heavy, and was starting to seriously reuse first stage boosters.

"Blue is kind of lazy compared to SpaceX," one Blue Origin executive admitted in an internal memo in late 2018.

These were not easy facts for Blue Origin's leadership to contemplate. But they realized that if Blue Origin was going to become a great launch company, it should learn from the best. So in the late summer of 2018, as Bob Smith marked his first anniversary as chief executive of Blue Origin, he hired a management consulting firm called Avascent to assess SpaceX's strengths and weaknesses.

Basically, from the leaked screenshots of the report, Blue Origin identified a couple of key strength SpaceX has that Blue Origin needs to catch up on in order for them to compete:

1. Customer Focus. SpaceX spends a lot of effort on satisfying customers, seeking to provide desirable services at a lower cost. They work with their customer to develop the best, cheapest solution for the customer's needs, not think of the customer as a nuisance and that they know better.

2. Focus on Cost Control. SpaceX is extremely good at cost control at all stages of development, seeking to minimize costs from the design stage to manufacturing. SpaceX thinks about costs during manufacturing during the design stage, to ensure components are easy and cheap to make during production, and not worry about designing the best solution bar none.

3. Vertical Integration. This ties into cost control, but SpaceX is famously vertically integrated, with the bulk of their rocket being built in house, and some components farmed out to other manufacturers.

4. Talent Management. SpaceX is extremely good at attracting young talent at lower salaries, due to a better vision and better overall compensation.

5. Getting the Most Out of Their Talent. SpaceX is known for pushing their employees to work long hours, while in contrast, Blue Origin is far more relaxed, even when deadlines are fast approaching, and they need as many hands on deck to help push projects through.

6. Iterative Design. SpaceX is well known for it's iterative design process, where they spend more time building and testing, and less time studying and designing problems. SpaceX is more than happy to have test articles blow up on the test stand as long as they learn about what happened and how to fix it.

It's very telling that apparently, this report is a few years old, and very little progress has been made by Blue Origin to act on the input they received from a consultant. And it's equally interesting that the mere existence of this report, along with the senior management comments got leaked to a journalist at this time.

To me, what is most interesting is this isn't just the consultant, this was put together from comments from the Blue Origin executive team. The consultant pulled the SpaceX "best of/best abilities" and then put it to the Blue Origin management team who then made the comments that then made the report to the Blue Origin president.

Tugg

Not only that, it appears Blue Origin didn't get message that the report was trying to pass along to them, or understood the context.

For example, the notes and comments from Blue Origin's executive team about SpaceX's employees often putting in massive amounts of OT compared to them seems to miss the mark as to why SpaceX employees are so willing to put in massive amounts of OT, and are just focused on the fact that SpaceX employees put in a lot of OT, ours don't, so we should make our employees put in lots of OT.

Hmmmm.....
It seems congress is now asking NASA to select another contractor for the Human Landing System program as part of the appropriation bill which covers NASA's budget.

https://spacenews.com/senate-appropriat ... ar-lander/
https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/senat ... r-program/

I don't know what to make of that. Of course, it could be that congress is genuinely worried that a single provider may be too risky (Starliner anyone?), but the cynic in me feels that Bezos and his cohort might have found a sympathetic ear or two up in DC after all his kicking and screaming.
I suppose it could also be the influence of LM or Northrop Grumman, both of which were rejected along with BO and have fairly influential lobbies in Washington.

Naturally, in typical Congressional fashion, the bill barely gives NASA any additional funding to pay for the second provider.

This whole fiasco has convinced me that NASA and the US govt will never be returning to the moon. It’s much preferred to stay on earth and argue over how to distribute the money to pay for a program that will never leave Earth.

The most likely entity to land on the moon is SpaceX as a private company. If anything, these decisions will speed up their progress. No need to waste time designing a special lander per the NASA specs, let’s just do it ourselves.

It’s absolutely pathetic. Hopefully the members of Congress when that happens will be sufficiently ashamed when they see a SpaceX flag unfurled on the moon…but I’m sure they’ll just be crying all the way to bank.

FGITD wrote:

This whole fiasco has convinced me that...

...Congress should simply indicate the goals, designate a budget and appoint something like a Space General. The General is both above and outside of politics, like every military commander. Then, the General orders what he needs from SpaceX, ULA and other companies to get the job done.

Now, there is simply too much meddling.

flyingturtle wrote:

FGITD wrote:

This whole fiasco has convinced me that...

...Congress should simply indicate the goals, designate a budget and appoint something like a Space General. The General is both above and outside of politics, like every military commander. Then, the General orders what he needs from SpaceX, ULA and other companies to get the job done.

Now, there is simply too much meddling.

The process needs to be simplified and streamlined, no doubt about that.

The current arrangement is just complete nonsense and I think more evidence of the “old space” mentality. It seems they never believed that one company would win the entire contract.

Congress tells NASA to get a LM…here’s $4 billion.

SpaceX offers to do it for $3 billion
Blue Origin says they’ll do it for $6 billion

They pick X, and then Congress asks them why it wasn’t possible to use both…

flyingturtle wrote:

FGITD wrote:

This whole fiasco has convinced me that...

...Congress should simply indicate the goals, designate a budget and appoint something like a Space General. The General is both above and outside of politics, like every military commander. Then, the General orders what he needs from SpaceX, ULA and other companies to get the job done.

Now, there is simply too much meddling.

There is no GO/FO outside of politics to some degree (perhaps less so at the 1 star/operator level) and every Procurement decision ultimately has a political nexus.

Lawsuit dismissed in a one page ruling, which means NASA and SpaceX can continue with HLS development:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap ... 74.0_1.pdf

In the United States Court of Federal Claims
No. 21-1695C
Filed: November 4, 2021
BLUE ORIGIN FEDERATION, LLC,
Plaintiff,
v.
UNITED STATES,
Defendant,
and
SPACE EXPLORATION
TECHNOLOGIES CORP.,
Defendant–Intervenor.

ORDER OF JUDGMENT

For the reasons assigned in the Memorandum Opinion filed concurrently with this Order of Judgment, the defendant’s motion to dismiss (ECF 60) under Rule 12(b)(1) and Rule 12(b)(6) of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims is GRANTED. The defendant’s motion for judgment on the administrative record (ECF 60) under Rule 52.1 of the Rules of the Court of Federal Claims is GRANTED. The defendant–intervenor’s motion for judgment on the administrative record (ECF 62) is GRANTED. The plaintiff’s motion for judgment on the administrative record (ECF 61) is DENIED.

So that the Court may release the opinion publicly, the parties shall meet and confer and jointly propose redactions to the Memorandum Opinion by November 18, 2021. Until the Court releases the opinion publicly, the parties are reminded that the protective order remains in force and they shall not disclose either the opinion or any portion of the opinion to any person not admitted to the protective order.

The Clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment for the defendant and defendant–intervenor in accordance with the Memorandum Opinion and this Order and to close the case. No costs are awarded.

Jeff Bezos seems to indicate that Blue Origin will not appeal the decision, so that ends that saga...

https://twitter.com/JeffBezos/status/14 ... 5761637384