US aerospace giants stall Elon Musk's NASA deal

NASA's plans to ship supplies to the International Space Station (ISS) using commercial spaceships - some provided by famous PayPal and electric-car hecamillionaire Elon Musk - are on hold following a protest by losing bidders in the contracts process. The Falcon 9 rocket, now erected on the pad at Cape Canaveral More than …

[Anonymous Coward]

NASA people caused the delays

PS is totally justified in their protest. The terms for the RFPs were clearly spelled out. All three competitors knew that. They tailor made their proposals and business plans to adhere to those requirements. In the end SpaceX scored first, PS second and Orbital third. The awards should have gone to SpaceX and PS. HOWEVER, it was the OPINION of Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for NASA's space operations, that took away PS's chance for part of the award.

If the rules are set up, played by and then thrown out by opinion at the end, then why even have the process if Bill Gerstenmaier is going to select the winners anyway? The answer is because it can't happen that way. Its not LEGAL.

[Joe Cooper]

All american?

Bringing that up is pretty much nonsense. SpaceX is all done in the US.

[James Hughes]

PS may be right

But SpaceX are probably still the best and cheapest option. And since they were first in the race anyway...

All this will do is delay and delay the shuttle replacement supply to ISS - as stated in the article.

And, SpaceX are entirely US based so that isn't an option for complaint unlike the tanker saga.

[Daniel B.]

Meh.

So political sabre-rattling is going to stop NASA's space projects? It looks more to me that the big aerospace corps are crying 'coz they didn't get the juicy project. Come on!

I wonder if Boeing would also break a tantrum if the next Air Force One is decided to be an Airbus. Given last week's A320 water-landing, it seems to be safer for emergencies than the Boeing craft.