NASA chief suggests SpaceX may be booted from moon mission

I love how government acquisitions works. A company can fail to deliver the final product, then use the recompete process to win a higher paying contract by using the progress they already made on the previous contract to demonstrate a performance level above their competitors.

Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability to meet the requirements of the second contract, the winner of the first contract used the government's R&D money to be competitive.

Everyone hates on the Government. But that describes every competitive bid process used by many corporations.

Any company can do that to another company.

Welcome to Capitalism. Just because it is a government contract doesn't by default mean it is Socialism.

And, of course they can re-bid. Just like every other corporation does.

I'm confused. Who are you talking about here?

SpaceX has consistently been on the wrong end of what you write about, with ULA/Boeing/whatever pulling that kind of stunt again and again. Just look at the SLS budget.

I didn't imply socialism. It's probably my fault you inferred it though as I'm blissfully ignorant of whatever the current echoes are these days that get people chirping in a specific direction.

No I'm just assuming SpaceX will win the recompetition and complaining about that future event.

And no, it doesn't need to be an "of course they can" inevitability. The rules of competition define what can and can't happen. If the rules of this competition allow a rebid, then that is a conscious decision. Rules / laws could be changed to disallow rebidding on follow-on contracts if there was a failure to deliver on the first one.

I'm assuming SpaceX will win this, and lamenting that. However I'm also being more general because you are absolutely on the same page as me that this is a decades-old problem.

I don't hate the player, I hate the game.

> Whereas all the competition has to use their own R&D budget to show capability

Think of it as a vote of no confidence. The incumbent has the advantage. But if they've squandered their advantage so thoroughly that a new entrant can match their capabilities, this is an opportunity to switch horses.

NASA should have done this, for example, when Bechtel began shitting the bed with ML2 [1].

[1] https://oig.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/ig-24-016.pd...

It reminds me how once you get on the preferred vendor list of a large corporation it becomes very very hard to stop getting paid. No matter how bad you screw up you get more projects because, hey, you're on the list. The US Government is the ultimate whale, get on that metaphorical preferred vendor list and you get "money for nothing and chicks for free" forever.

Lamenting it why though?

Because it's sad that other space companies are shit? Yea ok. I can get behind it.

Because you dislike Elon and would rather see the US space program turn to shit than allow Elon to get a symbolic win? Then I'm not onboard anymore.

No I couldn't care less about the people involved. And while it is sad that other space companies are not at the same level as SpaceX right now, even that wasn't my point. I'm sorry for the confusion.

My issue is purely with the US government's acquisitions process that seems to encourage a lack of competition and actually seems to actively hinder good research and development.

This monopsony needs an alternative.

This "monopoly" isn't a monopoly at all first of all. ULA and afaik even RocketLab are winning contracts, and SLS is still actually a thing.

The "monopoly" you are complaining about IS the competition. SpaceX literally cut US government spending on launch by billions over the years. AND it meant the US didn't have to go begging Putin for astronaut seats to the ISS.

Again: you can dislike Musk, and any sane person does, but from going from a dislike of a person to contorting the factually inaccurate stuff you just said just to satisfy your dislike of a person is crazy. You must see that.

I didn't say monopoly, I said monopsony.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopsony