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NASA’s award of $ 1 billion in contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics, and SpaceX to build landing vehicles to take astronauts back to the moon is making headlines this week, and don’t get me wrong, this is really a big problem. But it pales in comparison to another NASA contract that SpaceX won just over a month ago.
That contract, to provide logistics services to a planned lunar gateway space station orbiting the moon, could be worth as much as $7 7 a billion, and SpaceX might not have to share it with anyone.
SpaceX has a contract to send supplies to a lunar space station, but will there be a space station there to receive them? Image source: SpaceX.
$ 7 billion for SpaceX …
As NASA described the award of the largest contract in March, SpaceX will be contracted to “deliver pressurized and non-pressurized critical cargo, scientific experiments and supplies to the Gateway.” Once delivered, these supplies would be stored on the space station to supply astronauts exploring the lunar surface. By bringing a supply depot closer to the astronauts’ workplace, the Gateway should be able to withstand a longer exploration of the moon, allowing astronauts visiting the Earth satellite to stay there longer.
SpaceX supply executions will include “multiple supply missions” over a period of 12 to 15 years. Other companies may receive similar contracts, and according to NASA, the “maximum total value … on all contracts” could add up to $ 7 billion during the entire performance period. But with SpaceX currently the only contractor named to perform the service, there appears to be a very real possibility that SpaceX may only end up raising the entire $ 7 billion.
Or not.
… or $ 0 for SpaceX
You see, there’s only one problem with the contract NASA awarded SpaceX on March 27. It focuses on what NASA Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations Doug Loverro had said about the lunar mission two weeks before the contract was awarded.
Specifically, in discussions with the scientific committee of the NASA Advisory Council on March 13, Loverro seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea of using a Lunar Gateway. Highlighting the difficulty of fulfilling Vice President Pence’s mandate to land astronauts on the moon by 2024, Loverro said the best way to make that happen is to “remove all the things that add to the program’s risk along the way.” One of those “things” is the Lunar Gateway itself.
There is a “high possibility,” Loverro explained, that NASA will not be able to complete construction of the space station in time for astronauts to use it as the base from which to descend and ascend from the moon in 2024. Also, “from a physical perspective, “said Loverro,” I can guarantee that we don’t need it for this launch. ” (He’s also not particularly in love with NASA’s original plan “to launch a lander into three individual pieces that have to meet on” an orbiting space station before making its final approach to the moon.)
Simply put, it is simpler, and therefore less risky, to send astronauts directly from Earth to the moon and vice versa than to have them stop in pits at an orbiting space station en route. In fact, the Starship spacecraft that SpaceX is building in Texas is expressly designed to make such direct flights possible, and intermediate steps like the unnecessary Gateway.
SpaceX is not the only company that could lose
Perversely, this means that if the SpaceX spacecraft is Finally chosen as the spacecraft that takes astronauts back to the moon, it could make the Moon Gate – and $ 7 billion in “logistics services” contracts to supply the Moon Gate – unnecessary. There is a very real possibility that by building Starship, SpaceX could be working on a $ 7 billion job!
If that happened, if Lunar Gateway is deemed unnecessary and never built, it wouldn’t be bad news for SpaceX, either. Other space contractors, including those contracted by international NASA partners and also those of the United States. Maxar Technologies and Northrop Grumman, which have been awarded contracts to build elements of the Lunar Gateway, could also be lost.
Arguments for and against
Furthermore, with many companies besides SpaceX having vested interests (and valuable contracts) in the Lunar Gateway, NASA could end up building the thing up anyway. Perhaps not in time to facilitate the astronauts ‘first real trip (back) to the moon, but later, because even after the astronauts’ arrival, the case for establishing an orbital supply depot might have merit. .
In that regard, Loverro noted that he believes the Lunar Portal would help make lunar exploration missions “sustainable,” so he believes that “it will be built 100% positive” eventually if this can be done at reasonable cost. But even so, this leaves open the possibility that a budget-conscious NASA may end up deciding that the cost is not Reasonable … especially if SpaceX manages to build a spaceship that makes space stations irrelevant.
If you ask me, once the first spacecraft overlooks a space station to land on the moon independently, many people (at NASA, and certainly in Congress) will begin to wonder whether to spend additional billions to build A Moon Gate could be An unnecessary extravagance.
At that point, the watch will start working at Lunar Gateway, and all contracts linked to it will disappear forever.
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