It’s like losing out on $2.9billion wasn’t depressing enough for Jeff Bezos! Elon Musk took to Twitter to troll Amazon Founder Jeff joking he “can’t get it up (to orbit) lol” after Space X beat out Bezos’ Blue Origin to build a moon lander. Musk’s tease followed Blue Origin, the Bezos-owned space exploration company's 50-page protest with the federal government Accountability Office against NASA.
Elon Musk trolled Jeff Bezos after Space X beat out Bezos’ Blue Origin to build a moon lander.
Getty Images/Reuters
The company argued that NASA misjudges Blue Origin’s proposal in the three-way contest to build the new Moon lander, which also involved a bid from Dynetics, an Alabama-based defense firm. In particular, the Space CEO tweet was in response to a New York Times story about the space battle. However, NASA opted for Musk’s Space X to build the lander to put the first woman and person of color on the moon.“Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol,” Musk tweeted.
Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 26, 2021
According to AL.com, Bezos’ company claimed its bid was $5.9billion while SpaceX’s bid came in at $2.91billion. In the protest first reported by The New York Times, Bob Smith, CEO of Blue Origin, accused NASA of placing more considerable emphasis on cost than it said it would. He added that the space agency should have stuck to its oft-stated desire to award the contract to two companies.
SpaceX's HLS Starship will include Raptor engines and inspiration from the Falcon and Dragon vehicles' designs.
NASA
Lawyers for Blue Origin also told AL.com that “NASA had indicated an overriding intention to make two awards, but due to perceived shortfalls in presently available and anticipated future budget appropriations, it made only the award to Space X, eliminating HLS competition and effectively locking own immediate and future lunar landing system development and launch and lunar landing opportunities.”Blue Origin has been working on a moon landing system, known as Blue Moon, since 2017.
NASA
Since 1972, America hasn’t witnessed a human landing system, and NASA has been planning an epic return to the moon for quite some time. The Artemis mission set for 2024 will see four spacefaring heroes board the Orion spacecraft that will be rocketed off to space by NASA’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS). Once in orbit, two crew members will be transferred to the Space X human landing system (HLS) and head to the moon.
Artemis' mission set for 2024 will see four spacefaring heroes be rocketed off to space by NASA’s powerful Space Launch System (SLS).
NASA
Nonetheless, Bezos can take comfort in the fact that he’s still richer than Musk. At the moment, he has a net worth of $198.3billon, according to Forbes, while Musk settles at a net worth of $179.4billion. Bernard Arnault and his family own the 2nd most enormous fortune globally, with a net worth of $181.7billion.
