The order would come through the Endless Frontier Act, a bill to beef up resources for science and technology research that’s being debated on the Senate floor this week. An amendment was added to that legislation by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to hand over $10 billion to NASA — money that most likely would go to Blue Origin, a company that’s headquartered in Cantwell’s home state.So it is not so much corporate welfare as old fashioned Congressional pork. I have to agree with Sanders (gag, gag, gag) on this unless NASA really needs a second source. Musk won the contract and there is no need to pay for the losers too.Cantwell’s amendment is no sure bet though: Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., introduced a last-minute amendment Monday to eliminate the $10 billion. “It does not make a lot of sense to me that we would provide billions of dollars to a company owned by the wealthiest guy in America,” Sanders told The Intercept Tuesday.
The Bezos space company had been competing against SpaceX for a contract to put astronauts on the moon, the first such trips since 1972, but lost the bidding process with a price tag twice that of SpaceX. NASA announced the award to the Elon Musk-owned company last month.
Thanks for tracking that down. It does come across as a bailout for the loser in the competition and that is not justified unless, as you point out, NASA needs two suppliers. But that rarely happens.
Sanders did his usual job of using irrelevant communist agitprop to paper over the real argument against spending that $10 billion as a payoff to Cantwell and Bezos. He clearly does not understand the issues at play.
That Cantvotewell bit seem to be some of the pressure being applied to SpaceX by the FAA and EPA to shut them down - at least in Texas.
SpaceX’s development is characterized by rapid prototyping with each failure improving the next. Slowing it down or halting it entirely places SpaceX in financial difficulties - which is the point.