Tesla chief Musk trolls Amazon’s Bezos

The 2 billionaires, who’ve been attempting to launch long-range orbital rockets, had been competing for a coveted contract from the federal government to construct a spaceship to ship astronauts to the moon as early as 2024.

Bezos’ Blue Origin on Monday filed a protest with the Authorities Accountability Workplace (GAO), accusing the Nationwide Aeronautics and House Administration (NASA) of transferring the goalposts for contract bidders on the final minute.

Musk, who additionally leads SpaceX, fired again with a tweet that stated: “Can’t get it up (to orbit) lol.”

He didn’t elaborate on the tweet, however pasted a screenshot of a 2019 report about Bezos unveiling Blue Origin’s moon lander on the identical Twitter thread.

Blue Origin has fallen far behind SpaceX and United Launch Alliance (ULA) on orbital transportation, shedding out on billions of {dollars}’ value of U.S. nationwide safety launch contracts that start in 2022. ULA is a three way partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

These rocket startups primarily purpose to ship satellites for purchasers into orbit at an inexpensive worth and reuse components of rockets to maintain prices in verify.

Earlier this month, NASA awarded SpaceX the lunar contract over Blue Origin and protection contractor Dynetics. The sought-after challenge goals to place people again on the moon for the primary time since 1972.

“NASA has executed a flawed acquisition for the Human Touchdown System program and moved the goalposts on the final minute,” Blue Origin stated in an emailed assertion.

“Their determination eliminates alternatives for competitors, considerably narrows the provision base, and never solely delays, but additionally endangers America’s return to the moon. Due to that, we’ve filed a protest with the GAO.”

The GAO additionally confirmed that Dynetics had challenged the NASA contract award to SpaceX. Dynetics didn’t instantly reply to a Reuters request for remark.

Musk’s SpaceX bid alone whereas Amazon.com founder Bezos’ Blue Origin partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper.

The submitting of the 50-page protest by Blue Origin was reported earlier by the New York Occasions.