The complaint is more that only SpaceX was selected
They do not mind that SpaceX got an HLS award. They are complaining that only SpaceX got an award.
Together Dynetics and Blue will probably cause up to 100 days of delays to SpaceX getting any money. They might get some of the costs of making a proposal back. The complaint about NASA telling SpaceX that NASA was short of money and not telling Dynetics/Blue may be a legal foot in the door. It is really silly because congress passed a budget way smaller than NASA asked for. It was obvious months ago to anyone who took even a little interest that NASA could not afford anything like $5.99B for Blue or the currently secret but bigger amount for Dynetics.
Jeff could throw an extra billion per year to the rest of the Nation Team to make Blue HLS affordable. Dynetics does not appear to have friends with such deep pockets. Blue rather shot themselves in the foot. Although NASA wanted to keep two of the proposals going that was not a cast iron promise in the request for proposals. Blue decided that as NASA was going to select two they had no need to compete with SpaceX. They only had to do a little better than Dynetics.
Most of the text of these protests is not addressed to the GAO. They are really talking to congress about the threat to the pork supply jobs programs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
