Looks like humans won’t be returning to the moon anytime soon…
It’s official. NASA has delayed work on its Human Landing System (HLS) following the lawsuit filed by Blue Origin against the space agency. The news was confirmed by Bill Nelson, NASA administrator who said in an interview, “The lawyers at the Justice Department are the ones that handle the case. NASA does not handle the case. But my understanding from our lawyers, talking to the Justice Department lawyers who will present a case, is that they should have an idea on the schedule moving forward within the next two weeks.” It seems like Jeff Bezos’ rivalry with Elon Musk is hindering NASA’s plan to send astronauts to the Moon as early as 2024 as they might be seeing more delay till operations can resume.
Blue Origin has been in the spotlight for a few weeks now but not for a good reason. Firstly, they filed a lawsuit against NASA for unfair evaluation and decision to grant SpaceX the lunar landing contract. Then the space agency’s lead engineer of mission architecture and integration for the HLS bid farewell to the team and decided to switch sides by joining SpaceX. Following the news, more than a dozen more employees quit their job, starting a chain reaction. And now it seems like Blue Origin is grasping at straws and trying everything they have in their power to sabotage NASA and SpaceX’s joint venture, even at the cost of their own reputation.
Initially it was reported that work on the HLS would be paused till November but no news has been confirmed regarding it yet. While a date wasn’t specified by Bill Nelson on the resumption of the program, he said that right now NASA is dealing with spacesuit development delays and getting enough funding from Congress so it wouldn’t be wrong to say that NASA has its hands full right now.