Five new players – including Blue Origin and SpaceX – are now in NASA's race to send landers to the Moon A total of 14 companies have now entered the race to develop landers to deliver goodies to the Moon as NASA plans to send the first woman and the next man to our nearest rocky companion by 2024. Five vendors joined the growing list on Monday, according to a media teleconference broadcast on NASA Live. Some of the most …
When list items themselves contain commas, it's usually common practice to use semicolons to separate list items:
company one, location; company two, location; etc, etc...
You know, if you know how to write proper English like what I does. ;)
When list items themselves contain commas, it's usually common practice to use semicolons to separate list items:
company one, location; company two, location; etc, etc...
You know, if you know how to write proper English like what I does. ;)
Perhaps the questionable use of English is a nod to the left-pondian nature of the subject matter
2.5Bn will buy you a complete Mars rover mission. e.g. Curiousity. So 2.6Bn is a bit more than pocket change. HOWEVER, It looks like you're probably right. This contract pool appears to be just for some bus tickets from Low Earth Orbit to on the ehrrr ... "ground" on the moon -- not the full missions. Perhaps someone who knows more can clarify what is being purchased, how many missions are involved, and what the full costs are likely to be
So they've already decided that the next landing will have a woman on board? Isn't that a bit sexist? From what I've read about NASA's female 'nauts, they want to be there on merit.
Of course doing the *logical* thing - factoring in body mass, food consumption etc - would most likely lead to an all-female crew, but that ain't happening either.
How is that sexist? I'm pretty sure all of NASA's female astronauts think they're just as qualified to go to the Moon as their male colleagues. Might as well cross "first female on the Moon" off the milestone list since we have no other real mission goals except to feel good about American potential again.
The problem with pre-determining the gender of mission personnel is that they didn't get the position via quality of work, but their glands... It also predetermines that only one of the crew will be female, when the two best-qualified might both be female.
Let the men and women of NASA compete equally for all positions and hang their gender.
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If they were seriously factoring such considerations into the mix then the future pool of astronauts would be noticeably smaller in stature than the test pilot hero's who made up the early Astronaut Corps. The only place that the extra "muscle" would be an advantage is for the payload specialists and mechanical engineers doing the building and maintenance on space borne structures.
Our "hero's" going forward would not be the broad shouldered, lantern jawed,above average height types but men and women of small stature, average or slightly below.
Robo-hamsternauts would be lighter, not need feeding or waste disposal and, being shorter in stature than the average astronaut, would be able to study the regolith more easily without causing back problems - better all around.
However, to deal with the unknown they would need some heavy autonomous processing abilities - probably based on AI, Hold up! Wasn't one of the bidders a specialist in AI? It all makes sense now,
"We're going to land the first robo-hamsternauts on the moon!"
The CLPS contracts have a total combined value of a $2.6bn. The 14 companies in the pool will be allowed to bid for contracts, and NASA will award them based on technical capabilities, price, and schedule.
Other US companies in the competitive pool, include Astrobotic Technology, Pittsburgh, Deep Space Systems, Colorado, Draper, Massachusetts, Firefly Aerospace, Texas, Intuitive Machines, Houston, Lockheed Martin Space, Colorado, Masten Space Systems, California, Moon Express, Florida and Orbit Beyond, New Jersey. ®
Obviously, considering The American State's libertarian deep devotion to awarding on merit without nationalist favouritism, it will be nice when NASA selects non-American firms for the contracts.
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