What bothers me admit space X, was they awarded a 3 billion dollar contract for Starship. They were awarded this by Kathy Lueders, and interim director at NASA, who reached out to only SpaceX and told them to drop their bid to get the contract. She, as an interim director, single handedly and I’d argue fraudulently awarded over 3 billion dollars to SpaceX. She then went on to retire from NASA six months later to take a job as manager of the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica.
Fraud and lies means we’re probably not going back to the moon. Just like how Tesla got so popular because they deceive investors with unachievable ranges on electric cars and the promise of full self driving cars.
I had to look this up, but that’s not exactly what happened.
Proposals from all 3 were looked at, but due to the funding available from congress (they only gave 25% of what NASA asked for) there was only enough funding to fund one and SpaceX was the best option. She did ask SpaceX to reasses their bid, but SpaceX did not change it, and still won.
Even given that though, it does sound a little sketchy how it all played out, especially with the job after.
Blue Origin the next lowest bid was 2x Spacex’s 3 Billion.
The protest from the other companies was then rejected by the courts.
Edit: Also Re: Tesla range - Your beef is with the EPA and their testing mechanism, not Tesla. Tesla cars have consistently met EPA ranges in EPA type tests. Until the Model 3 highland (released in 2024), they would rapidly drop off in range at prolonged 70mph (considered ‘real world driving’ which autoblogs test with) but that’s on the EPA test, not Tesla. Tesla built the car to get the EPA range.
Edit: More on the EPA, in addition to a better ‘real world driving’ metric at prolonged high speeds, they also need a cold weather metric, as all EVs suffer on range in cold weather, and knowing how a specific car will handle it due to differences like heat pumps vs resisitive heating, is much needed to make informed decisions.
What bothers me admit space X, was they awarded a 3 billion dollar contract for Starship. They were awarded this by Kathy Lueders, and interim director at NASA, who reached out to only SpaceX and told them to drop their bid to get the contract. She, as an interim director, single handedly and I’d argue fraudulently awarded over 3 billion dollars to SpaceX. She then went on to retire from NASA six months later to take a job as manager of the SpaceX facility at Boca Chica.
Fraud and lies means we’re probably not going back to the moon. Just like how Tesla got so popular because they deceive investors with unachievable ranges on electric cars and the promise of full self driving cars.
I had to look this up, but that’s not exactly what happened.
Proposals from all 3 were looked at, but due to the funding available from congress (they only gave 25% of what NASA asked for) there was only enough funding to fund one and SpaceX was the best option. She did ask SpaceX to reasses their bid, but SpaceX did not change it, and still won.
Even given that though, it does sound a little sketchy how it all played out, especially with the job after.
Blue Origin the next lowest bid was 2x Spacex’s 3 Billion.
The protest from the other companies was then rejected by the courts.
Edit: Also Re: Tesla range - Your beef is with the EPA and their testing mechanism, not Tesla. Tesla cars have consistently met EPA ranges in EPA type tests. Until the Model 3 highland (released in 2024), they would rapidly drop off in range at prolonged 70mph (considered ‘real world driving’ which autoblogs test with) but that’s on the EPA test, not Tesla. Tesla built the car to get the EPA range.
Edit: More on the EPA, in addition to a better ‘real world driving’ metric at prolonged high speeds, they also need a cold weather metric, as all EVs suffer on range in cold weather, and knowing how a specific car will handle it due to differences like heat pumps vs resisitive heating, is much needed to make informed decisions.