Posted on 05/21/2023 3:13:32 PM PDT by algore
Outrageous egos battling each other across the cosmos? Check.
Sci-fi nerds who’ve definitely watched too much Star Trek? Check.
Humanity’s next chapter in a space left in the hands of insanely rich tech billionaires happy to take NASA’s tax-payer billions? Check.
This is Mission Control: We have lift-off!
Just a month after Elon Musk’s SpaceX launched the world’s most powerful rocket to date - the 400-ft long, $67 million Starship - only for it to explode mid-air just four minutes into flight, a phoenix has risen from the flames to bravely take on the quest for space travel.
Or at least, that may be how bitter rival Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos sees it.
On Friday, NASA awarded his space-exploration company Blue Origin a coveted $3.4 billion to build a ‘lunar lander’ to take astronauts to the Moon.
As part of NASA’s Artemis V mission, scheduled for 2029, the lunar lander will collect astronauts from a NASA outpost orbiting the Moon, take them down to the lunar surface - and then bring them back again.
But, given that Musk’s company is already working on doing precisely the same thing for the Artemis program, we now face the prospect of two of Silicon Valley’s most contentious figures competing head-on in a bizarre new 21st-Century space race.
And this is no ordinary commercial contest. These are two ultra-competitive international business titans, both of whom have held the title of world’s richest person, and whose fierce rivalry goes back two decades.
Most recently, in 2021, SpaceX beat Blue Origin and another US company, Dynetics, to win a $2.9 billion contract to build a lunar-lander version of its vast Starship rocket - called the Starship HLS (Human Landing System) - to put man back on the Moon for the first time since 1972.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
BO has not even got their new Glen pathfinder out to the pad yet. So ya nasa awarded then the 2nd lander.
Too bad these billionaires can’t compete to see who can clean up the homeless problem.
Wow great news for Bezos he could really use the money,
🤣🤣🤣 the bid process is long, nasa turned BO down once because of two many concerns, for the most part spacex is building starship on their own with some money from nasa and tech input, the same will happen for BO
They aren’t about to award the contract to Musk after he exposed their corruption on Twitter
BO has yet to get a rocket to orbit.
Musk has. Over 200 times.
Politics most likely entered into the bid. Musk is not woke enough.
I strongly prefer Musk to Bezos.
Musk is offering us a far more unbiased source of information with Twitter. Bezos offers us that sewer pipeline called the Washington Post.
The Washington Post did great damage to our nation because they were the number one source of all the Russia Collusion BS. Trump and those harmed should be allowed to sue that pos dry. They did great harm to the nation.
Why?
Bezos will take the billions spend a few million on the lander that we’ll never see and pocket the rest ?
Why?
to stop Bezos from suing NASA every week
I know more about Bezos than Musk
While I truly admire the Amazon Empire, I am not sure that it is overall good for humanity.
I believe that Musk is far smarter than Bezos, but he is an engineer who read every single Tom Swift book and early Bond movie as a child, he has by himself underhandedly pushed humanity forward many tech years.
The whole AI thing is interesting, it seems like he is Brer Rabbit.
Much of Bezos’ political power (and the goodies like this latest contract) stems from his and George Soros’ control of election outcomes (excluding 2016) for the American communists over the past 15 years...
Musk is at least 10 years ahead.
Lunar lander isn’t that hard now that musk can drop a booster through Earth’s atmosphere and stop it on a floating raft in the middle of a liquid ocean on a planet 6x the gravity on earth.
It’s like The Fountainhead where a bunch of dimwits are employed to mess up Roark’s apartment complex and make it hideous. The real work’s been done and you’re paying the other guy to f*** with it.
bkmk
Yeah, musk reminds me of Michael Crichton. Talented out the ears, money out the wazoo, but driven to do what he wants and nothing else.
After reading up on Musk, it seems he contacted Mr. Rocket...borrowed all his books...and Mr. Rocket says no one knows more about rockets than Musk. It was a super interesting read. It is Musk's pattern...he finds the best and absorbs their brain on a subject...
“I am still trying to comprehend how these two guys have more resources, ability and influence than any world government.”
Easy. They hire smarter people. Government hire unqualified affirmative action hires.
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