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Blue Origin, the rocket company founded by Jeff Bezos in 2000, is online after NASA snubbed it over a contract to land astronauts on the moon.
Instead, NASA chose SpaceX to put the first boots on the lunar surface since 1972. It awarded the company, founded by Elon Musk in 2002, an exclusive contract to turn its Starship vehicle into a lunar lander.
In response, Blue Origin called the spacecraft “immensely complex and high risk” and said NASA made the “wrong” decision. The company recently updated its website to include a graphic that compares Starship unfavorably to Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander.
Blue Origin seems to be, at a minimum, picking its comparisons. The graphic indicates that the Starship-Super Heavy system has not yet been launched. Starship has launched six miles in the air several times, but not with its Super Heavy booster. He also points out that SpaceX’s spacecraft facilities in Boca Chica, Texas, have never hosted an orbital launch. Blue Origin, however, never launched a rocket into orbit from anywhere.
The graph does not note the cost of the Starship lunar lander, however. SpaceX’s proposal estimates it will cost NASA $ 2.9 billion, while Blue Origin’s gave a price tag of $ 5.9 billion.
NASA was originally scheduled to award contracts to two companies, but cited a lack of funding from Congress in its decision to give SpaceX the only contract in April. Blue Origin and Dynetics, another competitor for the contract, have filed formal protests. These complaints forced SpaceX to halt work on its Starship lunar lander.
Bezos, who flew to the edge of space aboard Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket last month, even offered to pay $ 2 billion from the project if NASA awarded his company a contract.
Still, NASA refused. The United States Government Accountability Office upheld NASA’s decision and dismissed the protests on Friday.
Soon after, Blue Origin released their new graphic. But it wasn’t the first time the company had released infographics criticizing its competitors.
Blue Origin also posted a sarcastic graphic on Virgin Galactic
Blue Origin pioneered this new method of promoting itself (and hitting the competition) last month.
Weeks after Bezos revealed he was planning to fly to the edge of space, Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson announced he would board his own company’s space plane – with a takeoff scheduled just nine days before Bezos. Shortly before Branson’s flight, Blue Origin posted a chart comparing the two flights on Twitter. The graphic highlights that New Shepard has larger windows and flies higher than the Virgin Galactic space plane.
Yet even though Branson has beaten Bezos to the edge of space, the Amazon founder has a particular rivalry with Elon Musk. The two have similar ambitions – to establish human settlements in space – but have fought against their competing companies since 2013, when SpaceX attempted to gain exclusive use of a NASA launch pad and Blue Origin filed a protest. The companies have also fought over patents, and Bezos and Musk have repeatedly criticized each other on Twitter and in media interviews.
Now SpaceX is becoming a NASA favorite. Its Crew Dragon spacecraft regularly transports astronauts to and from the International Space Station. Just three days after Bezos launched, the agency awarded SpaceX a $ 178 million contract to launch its mission to Jupiter’s ocean moon, Europa.
Blue Origin, meanwhile, has yet to launch a rocket into orbit. Its vehicles can roam the edge of space for a few minutes before falling back, but they aren’t powerful enough to push themselves to orbital heights.
Blue Origin – which Bezos called “the most important work” – released more than the chart. On the same webpage, Blue Origin also posted three one-page letters criticizing NASA’s decision and imploring Congress to have the agency choose a second supplier for its lunar lander.
The letters say NASA’s process was “flawed,” “inconsistent,” “unfair,” and “ignored the significant risks” of choosing a single supplier.
Read the original article on Business Insider
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