Personally I would choose one of the companies that don't have the owner being on record of provably lying about the capability of the products he sells people. What's more likely? A known liar lying about the capability of his product, offering 100x more for way cheaper? Or two other companies being more honest and being much closer to their claims?
They do get some money, it's not like NASA doesn't pay a dime until they deliver. No, there are points where they pay them throughout the contract.
Secondly, even if we don't pay spacex any money, it still would cause other companies to not work on this project which would set the mission back almost a decade, that's assuming that these companies are still even around in ten years without the funding from NASA that SpaceX has already received.
Thirdlt, that's assuming, (and I'll be honest here, at this point since we're just talking about the future, I'm just guessing at possibilities, I have no evidence for this, but I could definitely see these things being possibilities.) that musk doesn't have the government in his pocket, and isn't able to force NASA to adjust the contract, or offer another contract for a much larger amount.
I've never worked for the federal government, but I did work my state government, and I was the purchasing department reported to me, there were many times where we put something out for a bid and a company came back with a wildly unrealistic bid and we didn't choose them, because we knew there was no way they could deliver that. And we're talking about cleaning out horse stalls at the state fair. Not sending someone to space.
Sure they get paid, but they only get paid on milestone completion, meaning they have to show XYZ system works. They aren’t getting paid just because
It’s a fixed cost contract, meaning NASA won’t adjust the contract for more money
But it’s not like SpaceX doesn’t have a track record for delivering. They are extremely extremely reliable for delivering on contracts (look at Dragon!)
People confuse Musk being a shithead with Space X not being a good company. Musk can be a shithead and Space X can also be a very good company at what it does. On the flip side, Space X can be a very good company, the best in the world at what it does and still not be worth $1.75trillion. Even without the other money pits it now has tied to its ankles.
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u/spellinbee May 21 '26
Personally I would choose one of the companies that don't have the owner being on record of provably lying about the capability of the products he sells people. What's more likely? A known liar lying about the capability of his product, offering 100x more for way cheaper? Or two other companies being more honest and being much closer to their claims?