ArsTechnica, here, describing Maria Cantwell and Bernie Sanders having differing views about what surely looks like a Cantwell effort to horn in on NASA decision making; where the specialists - not Cantwell, not Bezos, not Bernie - know best.
Please, politicians, let the agency try its best to do its job without Blue Origin getting any multi-billion dollar free money for a big billionaire's latest hobby.
Space exploration now is a troubled field in seeing Billionaire Musk and Billionaire Bezos wanting to capture the pole position in Space as Our Future money-making and horizon pushing New Frontier - via private capital space venturing.
When you see only one news outlet touching an issue, there always can be doubt. On the other hand Ars is not Breitbart; where prejudice is baked into the operating Gestalt. Ars is niche journalism, but seemingly unbiased in its tasking of its writers, and in whatever reporting or opining it chooses to publish.
_______UPDATE_______
PROPAGANDA - right before your eyes. Bezos = Seattle. In light of that, Seattle Times, an editorial, never mentioning SpaceX beyond the subtitle, but getting the crying towel out:
Washington suppliers may get left behind on moon lander program
June 2, 2021 at 1:25 pm
Jeff Bezos’ Kent-based rocket company, Blue Origin, is contesting NASA’s decision to award the Human Landing System contract for a lunar lander to competitor SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. Pictured is an illustration of the Blue Origin National Team integrated lunar lander vehicle. (Blue Origin)
By Emily Wittman
Special to The Times
In April, NASA took one step closer to the moon, announcing the $2.9 billion Human Landing System contract that delivers American space boots back to the lunar surface in 2024. But the decision leaves some Washington space suppliers’ feet firmly on the ground.
Kent-based Blue Origin, owned by Jeff Bezos, has been working directly with more than 20 companies in Washington state in support of its Human Landing System during the program’s “Base Period.” Selection as an HLS provider represented approximately $100 million in near-term contract work with Washington companies, according to the company. Blue Origin’s national team HLS partners Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman were also anticipating millions in contract opportunities for their nationwide supply chains.
[...]
Poor Jeff. Poor Lockheed. Poor Northrop. Business as usual, not being usual.
A more efficient private sector competitior offers taxpayers more bang for the buck. How much more unfair can you get?
You can read more but Cantwell, Jeff, Lockheed, and Northrop have an argument - a redundancy argument as with too many Pentagon weapons systems, spread the pork, it's tax money after all, so our place at the trough is justified by redundancy.
We've been there before and want there again - is a form of redundancy.
For those not reading the item, the footer:
Emily Wittman is president & CEO, Aerospace Futures Alliance, Washington State Space Coalition.
Informed minds can disagree, but Ars coverage strikes me as objective, this Wittman editorial, subjective. She writes:
Unfortunately, NASA has chosen just one provider — SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. By selecting a sole provider, NASA is potentially jeopardizing the safety and reliability of the new lunar lander. In April, NASA’s own Office of Inspector General stated that NASA officials have “expressed concern that selecting a single contractor would result in a lack of redundancy and potentially higher, less sustainable future HLS costs due to a lack of competition.”
Selecting only one provider — particularly one that manufactures virtually all its components in-house — also endangers our broad-based nationwide supplier network. It cuts most of the space industrial base out of NASA exploration, impacting jobs, the economy and NASA’s own future supplier options. Importantly, it puts Washington jobs at stake.
We are concerned about this change of approach, which eliminates essential competition and negatively impacts the space industrial base. Our concern is shared by members of Congress, including U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, who deserves great credit for raising this important question directly with Bill Nelson, a former astronaut and newly appointed NASA administrator, during his nomination hearing. She noted the importance of competition in the program and asked him to review the decision.
We are encouraged by the Senate Commerce Committee’s unanimous vote to mandate a second HLS provider and authorize $10 billion in new funding for the program. This amendment to the Senate version of the U.S. Innovation and Competition Act preserves the SpaceX award while providing enough funding for NASA to contract with a second HLS provider.
This is important progress, but Washington suppliers are still far from liftoff.
This websearch returns only one item, that item referencing Wittman, earlier, in 2019, online at Yahoo, beginning:
SpaceX employees in Redmond, Wash., give a cheer during the countdown to a Falcon 9 rocket launch that put dozens of Redmond-built SpaceX Starlink satellites in orbit on Nov. 11. (SpaceX via YouTube) Seattle may not be the best place to put a launch pad, but the region is turning into one of the most prolific satellite production centers in the United States.
“How many of you know that Washington state is actually one of the world’s leading satellite manufacturers?” Roger Myers, a longtime aerospace executive who is currently president-elect of the Washington State Academy of Sciences, asked during a session of the Pacific Northwest Economic Region’s Economic Leadership Forum on Monday.
In terms of sheer mass and revenue, Colorado-based Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s satellite operation in California still have bragging rights.
But when you tally up how many satellites have been launched in the past couple of years, it’s hard to beat SpaceX’s satellite development and manufacturing facility in Redmond, Wash.
Last week, SpaceX added another 60 satellites to its nascent Starlink broadband constellation, bringing Redmond’s count to 122. That includes the 60 satellites launched in May, plus two prototypes sent to orbit last year.
So, the editorial explained - SpaceX is one of Wittman's chickens, so let them keep their three billion taxpayer dollars they've already locked in on (and look at all the jobs in that opening pic); but also cut ten billion bucks more for the other Wittman chickens too. They also want to be fed.
A "Spread the size of the trough" argument?
Make Jeff a happier billionaire. Makes sense to me. Makes more sense to Jeff.
Link.