Planetary Radio: Space Exploration, Astronomy and Science - Space Policy Edition: How Starship at the Moon Brings NASA Closer to Mars

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

In a surprise move, NASA chose SpaceX's Starship as the sole winner of its 3 billion-dollar human lunar lander development contract. Within days, Blue Origin and Dynetics filed official protests, forcing NASA to delay the award. Casey and Mat discuss how this selection, if it stands, is a smart move for a space agency that is serious about a true "Moon-to-Mars" program. Should we stop thinking about SpaceX as a scrappy startup and instead treat it as the world's leading aerospace company? Discover more here: https://www.planetary.org/planetary-radio/0507-2021-spe-bill-nelson-spacex-lunar-landerSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome back, everybody. This is the May 2021 Space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio. It's great to have you all on board again. I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio, weekly host, that is, and the co-host with Casey Dreyer of this monthly installment, which is now how many years old, Casey? Is it five? I think it's five. I think it's five years. So congratulations, Casey. Little shows growing up. Yeah. And I don't know if you heard, we just celebrated the 1,000th episode of Planetary Radio a couple of days ago. And that includes the 61 space policy additions that I think we've done so far because there was an extra one in there someplace.

A special one when I think there was a budget approval. So you're part of it. Well, Matt, I'm honored to help you get to 1,000. That's truly astonishing. And congratulations on making it that many. I mean, I know somewhat about how much work goes into every single episode that you do here. And that's a lot of hours you've put into those 1,000 shows. So congratulations. Thank you. It's a lot of hours. No one is more surprised than me. But all you have to do is, you know, keep doing it. And eventually, you know, the numbers tick over to 1,000. I neglected to say that for the few of you who don't realize it, Casey, of course,

is the Senior Space Policy Advisor and Chief Advocate for the Planetary Society. You must be looking forward to being able to get out and about a little bit again. You had that great virtual day of action, but are you looking forward to getting back to DC in person? Oh, yeah, of course. DC is always just a fun place to visit. And of course, good friends there and great to meet people, you know, and make sure that everyone I'm talking to on the computer is not just some advanced AI that is passing the Turing test and fooling me the entire time to prove that they exist in real life.

But more importantly, frankly, I just want to see a rocket launch. I miss the launch of Perseverance. I love politics. I love space politics. I love space policy. But man, it really helps to have that visceral reminder of watching a launch to say, this is what we're working toward is what's sitting at the top of that rocket. And to feel that thing lift off, I am, I'm eager to get out and do that again. So happily vaccinated. I've, I've hit the two weeks. Um, and Matt, I know you are as well, and I'm looking forward to the rest

of the world opening up and dealing with that, taking the United States. And then of course, to the rest of the world opening up and dealing with that, particularly in the United States. And then of course, throughout the rest of the world as different countries are managing different variants and waves themselves. So hopefully we can get those out as fast as possible. Congratulations on full vaccination and the full two weeks following for full effectiveness. It's a good feeling, isn't it? I went to a restaurant and I ordered something and it was given to me, served at the proper temperature with the proper texture and not in a box, a paper box. It was a revelation. It was quite the experience. Well, we ate outside,

but we did do it. The same thing at a nice outdoor table. And it was just a lovely experience. Not quite up to watching a rocket launch, but not bad either. Depends how good the food is. I did note that while they all had masks on, the swearing in of the new NASA administrator happened in person with family members with, well, at least one past NASA administrator there in person and another being held by that NASA administrator on a small laptop. We're talking about Senator, now NASA administrator, Bill Nelson. That's right. It was like a Russian dolls nesting of NASA administrators in that scene. But yes, NASA has a new administrator, which is relatively fast within months of the new Biden administration coming in.

I recall under the Trump administration that we didn't have a NASA administrator nominated, I believe, until the end of 2017. And it was 2018 before they came into office. And so that, and we also had really nice news that Kamala Harris will continue to, the vice president will continue to chair the National Space Council, which was not a guaranteed thing. And a commitment to, again, continuing the National Space Council and seeing people staff up at the White House for more space policy hires. Way more space policy and space activities happening under this administration than their campaign would have suggested, which is a very pleasant surprise to see and very happy to see both of those things moving forward. And congratulations to Administrator Nelson. And of course, the Planetary Society looks forward to working with every NASA administrator to make sure we prioritize space science and exploration.

Equal time for Charlie Bolden, who was the former administrator holding that laptop with a beaming Jim Bridenstine on it. We actually have a little excerpt. I think it's worth listening to just because of the nature of what they have to say, both Administrator Nelson and Vice President Kamala Harris. This is immediately after the actual swearing in. Let's play that clip now. I want to say that it's a new day in space, but we wanted not only my family to be here, but representing the former administrator, Charlie Bolden, General Bolden, eight years under Obama, the former administrator, Jim Bridenstine, four years under Trump,

to show the continuity and the bipartisanship with which you run the nation's space program, particularly NASA. And then I want you all also to meet my deputy, yet to be confirmed but surely to be confirmed, Pam Melroy, an astronaut commander, one of only two women, former test pilot for the Air Force, former DARPA, and this is going to be the team that will be leading NASA. So thank you, Madam Vice President. Congratulations, Mr. Administrator, and for all of the work you have done and all that you have dedicated to our country.

This is going to be a good time for you to do all that you have done and bring that intelligence and that experience to this position. So thank you. Thank you to the whole family. And to the past administrators, thank you for your dedication and your work. Couldn't agree more that this has to be about our nation and what is best for our nation, unencumbered bipartisan politics, but based on what we know is the right thing to do and the potential for all that we have.

So thank you all. So there you have it. Senator, now NASA Administrator, Bill Nelson, and the Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris. An upbeat sound to that as well. And Casey, I bet you were, whether you were surprised, but I bet you were pleased to hear the Vice President talking about the bipartisan nature of space. Always happy to hear NASA put in that context. And, you know, really, I would say nonpartisan nature of it, of space exploration. I think NASA, again, as we pitched to the Biden administration,

it can be used as a tool of engagement and relationship building to develop and pursue shared goals in areas of politics that are not so infused with partisanship. Just maybe, maybe that experience of working together can forge stronger relationships of trust between people of different parties who can then use that to continue to work for the nation altogether. But again, always really happy to hear it and that people understand that. And also, you know, you think about it, and this is not normal, you know, you don't swear in the new transportation secretary and discuss that kind of transportation is something that brings everyone together, even though it kind of literally does. It's not really

pitched that way. And so NASA, you can see, how NASA occupies this really kind of unique place in the federal government where it is one of those activities that it's not, because it's not necessary, the fact that we continually choose to pursue it says something about its inherent value. Even if that value is hard to quantify, we can expand that out to not just cooperation between people of different parties, but of course, cooperations between nations and space as this opportunity to bring people together on these grand projects of peaceful exploration. Always music to my ears. Happy to hear the vice president highlight that and really hoping to see that used and pursued as we go forward here in the next few months.

Matt, I believe since we last spoke, there is so much space news that has happened policy-wise that we will see, I think, this really being put to the test and a lot of issues starting to go forward to really address. And we're going to talk about some of those developments. One in particular that you wrote about back on April 20th, having to do with SpaceX and some of its competition. But let me sneak in, you didn't think we forgot, did you? A little promo here. All this hopeful stuff, all this optimism that flows out of space exploration, that's what a large part of what we're all about at the Planetary Society. It's why we have Casey doing the work that he does, Brendan Curry there in Washington, D.C.,

representing us and promoting these very goals and initiatives. We hope that you will want to become part of it if you're not already. If you're already a member, well, thank you. Thank you very much because you make it all possible. And if you're not, take a look at planetary.org slash join. And please consider becoming part of this grand nonpartisan effort that Casey was just making reference to. Casey, I know you want to talk about it. You and our colleague, Editorial Director Jason Davis, did write about it on April 20th. The article is titled, Why NASA Picks SpaceX to Land Humans on the Moon, subtitle, and How the Decision Will Help Humans Land on Mars. It's a pretty

big development and not one that has gone without controversy. Yeah, I'd go as far as say it could be the most consequential decision by NASA when it comes to returning to the moon. You've probably heard if you're listening to this show, you've probably heard this news, right? That SpaceX's Starship was chosen as the lunar lander, that the other companies, Blue Origin and its national team and Dynetics have both filed official protests to the government accountability office protesting the award by NASA to SpaceX. And you've probably heard that NASA has temporarily suspended activity on this project, or at least the flow of money for this

contract to SpaceX as a consequence of that. So this is big news. It really, of course, I think, made it into headlines. And of course, the space community has been already talking about it. You know, we'll talk about that. But I also really want to think about kind of the broader implications of the decision. And also the kind of the policy and politics that follow from this decision as well. So this won't be so much a discussion of the technical merits, or exactly how things work, because you're obviously you're listening to the space policy edition, we have to stay true to form here. You know, I think the entire thing can also predicate this to Matt, where you know,

from reader or listener comments, that people have critiqued us and me over time for not being a big enough SpaceX fan, right? For being too kind to our large government supplied contracts of the Space Launch System and Orion. And I stand by all that, obviously, but I think I've been in an interesting position of being a very bullish supporter of this original decision to award this contract to SpaceX. And there's a fundamental reason why that I explained in this article with Jason. This isn't just about going back to the moon. Going to the moon is part of what NASA is claiming as a moon to Mars program. That Artemis is just a further step. It's so easy for that to be rhetoric. It's so easy for that to just be words on a page or a PowerPoint presentation that says, we're going to go to the moon and then Mars. Well, how do you do

the Mars part? Well, we'll figure out after we get to the moon. Obviously, we all know space is hard. But there is an institutional and I think behavioral tendency to optimize for the problems that are the most immediate and to solve your immediate needs at the expense of the future. of the future. And that was always my worry about a moon to Mars program, right? Where you could find yourself, if you optimize to solve for getting humans on the moon as fast as possible, that you find yourself in a sense in a lunar cul-de-sac instead of on a road to Mars. And that you've created these wonderful pieces of hardware and operations and supply chains and systems that can get you to the moon, but then keep you at the moon. And it's hard to break out of those over time. And we can look to any number of large, particularly human spaceflight programs, like the Space Shuttle, or the International Space Station. They have their role, obviously, in developing a long-term presence in space and pushing humans beyond low Earth orbit,

but can also act as a yoke around the neck of the program with an ongoing cost operationally, both in time and in money, that prevent investments from being made into the future programs. And this is why I'm excited about the SpaceX selection, in that what NASA chose of the three contenders between the Blue Origin's national team and Dynetics was the most Mars-forward general solution for returning to the moon. Certainly that's true. All you have to do is look at the corporate mission of SpaceX. It is focused on the red planet.

And Elon Musk, of course, has made no secret about that. That beautiful rendering of a starship sitting next to a city on Mars. It's not just hardware. We've got a company that really is focused on the red planet. That's exactly right, Matt. And again, this is what is changing and has changed. And really what I think defines, again, no one likes the term new space anymore, or a lot of people never did. But in lieu of a better term for this, these new era of private space companies that have ambitions beyond that of serving government contract needs. Boeing will happily make a lunar lander or a large rocket or a mission to Venus. Whatever you want it to do, Boeing will make it for you.

Boeing is not going to be going beyond, you know, on its own. Boeing would not launch the SLS without NASA's contract. It's not some pre-existing goal of that company to send people into space in this large heavy lift rocket. This is the really interesting development, I think. And this is what is profoundly changing the nature of space exploration in this century. This is what I think we're going to see as the demarcation of the 21st century style of spaceflight versus the 20th century style of spaceflight, is that you have organizations with independent goals that exist outside of national space agencies. Whether or not those can happen, right, we're running that test. We don't know if

SpaceX can do it. But we do know that one of the wealthiest people in the world is putting their entire, almost their entire resources and focus onto the goal of sending humans to Mars for long term. We do know that the wealthiest person in the world wants to send humans into space for the long term, right, with Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin, that these endeavors will happen whether or not NASA's domestic political boundaries allow it to support that. And so in this case, what's so interesting, and this is what we wrote about, where NASA's immediate political focus and the coalition it has built for itself politically to allow itself to return to the moon is an interesting mix of existing old school aerospace

contracts, right? SLS and Orion. It's a mix of these new companies, you know, not just SpaceX, but with the commercial lunar payload services program where you have Astrobotic and all these other lunar payload delivery companies. Also known as CLIP. Yep. And then also, of course, you have supply services for the Gateway. You have international partners coming in at the Gateway Project. So they've assembled this kind of motley mix of programs in a somewhat Frankenstein-like political coalition building process, which I think will

prove to be enduring if it can get off the ground. This is how you build coalitions, right? In the process of doing that, they now have the ability to select partners who share those values, but also can carry them into this further step that they may not be allowed to focus on yet. So NASA does not have funding or political ability to invest directly in a human-rated Mars landing system. It's just not something they're able to do. But what they can do is because they're returning to the moon, they can invest in a company that will get them to the moon, but it's also independently investing in that Martian landing capability, right? So because if you strategically choose your partners to meet your immediate need and set you up for your next step, that is a much smarter move

than just finding a partner who will meet your immediate need and nothing else. So that's what excites me about this decision. We can hope that it'll move forward in one form or another, because of course, as you pointed out right now, protests have been filed by both Blue Origin and Dynetics, which it should be pointed out, have not built vehicles like this ever. You know, in Blue Origin's case, they've been around for 20 years now. They have one rocket, the New Shepard, which has been pretty successful, but their giant leap to a heavy lift vehicle, the New Glenn, seems to have been somewhat stymied. And this is not really the direction that you were going in.

But I'm just wondering, there has been some coverage recently, including by your former guest on this show, Eric Berger at Ars Technica, who has written about what's going on with Blue Origin. And are we now going to see Jeff Bezos maybe spending more time there to try and give them a little kick? of a private space company, even with his wealth, you'd rather not spend your own money, I'm sure, like anybody. But it also becomes like a statement of support and buy-in from a discerning customer, right, the US government. Everything I just said was kind of interesting, right, is that SpaceX is going to be doing this one way or another. And Jeff Bezos has said he's doing it one way or another. So why are they fighting this contract award? On the show notes, I'll provide a link to you can read Blue Origin's full protest that they posted. It's redacted with some numbers. But you can read the argument that they make and you almost see it. And I frankly don't want to spend too much time on a literary review of this because I'm not a contract lawyer. And it's hard to say, you know, exactly what it

is. But you can almost read this contract. It's almost like their good name they felt was, you know, sullied by this contract award. They make two big arguments. One is that NASA's evaluators on their technical side were just flat out wrong. And they were, they were incorrectly dinged on a technical side for things that NASA messed up on. That's their job. So that they were technically great. That's probably,

I would imagine that's par for the course in pretty much any protests like this and the other is an interesting one saying that their argument was that nasa always said that they intended to choose two providers by not doing that and saying that money was a limit fundamentally changed the contours of the competition in an unfair way. And they were not allowed to come back and try to appeal to that cost or selection limit. And didn't Dynetics make the same argument that basically NASA changed the rules in the middle of the game? Yeah. So I mean, that's the argument. So again, why did they do this? Well, there's, I mean, we can step back, there's a very basic reason. And this is not uncommon for a large government procurement contract decision to be challenged by the people who

lost it. This happens all the time. Because if you look at it from the loser's perspective, if there's a non zero chance, you can overturn the contract and get the money, well, you might as well. They don't get charged a fee, right? They don't get dinged on it for challenging it, right? There's no cost to them in a sense for challenging it, but there could be a reward in it. And so just balancing out the incentives, you challenge it. SpaceX has challenged plenty of contracts itself in the past. I believe we talked about one a few years ago where the launch of the Lucy spacecraft was at risk because SpaceX challenged the contract award of that launch to the United Launch Alliance. Yeah. And nearly blew the launch window of Lucy.

It strikes me this is kind of the aerospace industry version of Pascal's wager. You can't really lose. You might as well. You might as well go for it. But I did read that only about 15% of these protests are ever sustained. Yeah. Procurement officers and the whole process, it's a highly structured legal process on the government side, specifically on anticipation of potential contract challenges like this, award challenges.

And this is why you never see NASA employees, particularly ones who are in charge, like Kathy Leder's, in charge of selecting these, responsible for selecting these awards. They can never talk about it while the award is in process. You'll always hear them say, well, there's an open competition or there's an open contract, you know, competition. I can't speak about this, blah, blah, blah. That's all to protect this process. The GAO is not full of rocket engineers, right? You know, they're going to review the contracting process and the actual formal process and made sure that it followed the rules. I would be surprised given, you know, if you read through the award selection letter,

again, that we'll link to, and why they chose SpaceX, the government I don't think is under any obligation to choose multiple providers. The arguments about money are somewhat odd, let's say, because they really did not get what they asked for the blue origin contract says like oh you know nasa it's ridiculous they should only go down to one contractor because nasa requested 15 billion dollars over the next five years for the lunar human landing system but of course you know that was the Trump administration. And I think that the implication here, if you kind of are reading between the lines

of the NASA selection and what NASA was talking about when they didn't get the money, this is not just Congress not giving them the money. This is the Biden administration saying that they do not anticipate asking for that much more money either over the next four years. If the Biden administration was going to come in and say, NASA only got 25% of what it asked for in 21 for human landing system, but we're going to ask for 3 billion again, you would have seen two awards. That would have been the baseline that would have worked for them. So I think what this implication is, is that the Biden administration itself is not going to ask at a

high level of funding. They're fine with providing having one provider, they don't want to pay for two, their other priorities are going to take higher precedence. And then this is a consequence of an administration change. This is not what the Trump administration would have done almost shortly. I will be surprised if it gets overturned. It could be, right? I would be surprised. But again, I'm not a contract lawyer. And I think what you're seeing here is, in a sense, a pushback against the idea that Blue Origin wasn't technically proficient. I think a lot of that contract protest is defending its good name, in a sense, of what it did and also saying that the money thing should have been adjudicated more fairly spacex came in with the lowest proposal by a factor of

two yeah and you can read in the letter from again what nasa released on the contract selection saying that you know there was so little money left over after choosing SpaceX that the government could not in good faith negotiate with anybody for a second award because they would be saying, here's $15 million. Can you match it with 6 billion of your own money or something like that? It's frustrating. And the fact that they have to suspend,

you know, again, that's standard. They usually will suspend an award while it's being contested. The powerful thing, and this is what I was talking about, about this fundamental change that's happening around us where NASA is aligning itself with, this is the true public-private partnership, right? They're aligning themselves with ambitious partners. And, you know, as we're speaking, SpaceX is attempting another launch of the starship right yeah so work on the starship will not pause while this is being adjudicated that is the kind of one

of again the powerful things about this and there's another point that we need to remember about this that i think a lot of people and i put myself in this to some extent in the media too and in the space community, still act like SpaceX is some startup scrappy organization. But they're launching people into space. Two countries and SpaceX launch people into space now, right? Russia, China, and SpaceX on behalf of the United States. and SpaceX on behalf of the United States. Yeah. They're the, I'd say, you know, arguably the world's most capable aerospace company that have earned their way into a, they're proposing a wildly audacious, technically

challenging solution for landing humans on the moon with Starship that involves a lot of cryogenic fuel transfer, lots of launches in low Earth orbit, but they have delivered. This is not coming, you know, we have to take in this data that has happened over the last 10 years of delivering on commercial cargo, delivering on commercial crew, delivering on promises of reusability. It is truly impressive what they have demonstrated their ability to do. And if we don't take that new data into consideration and revise our, in a sense, assumptions as a consequence of that, then we're not looking at the full picture. And so if you just step back and say, of the three companies, and you were kind of pointing this out earlier, Matt, of the three companies that pitched lunar landers to NASA, NASA chose the

only one with demonstrated capability, right? Yeah, yeah. And is actually flying and actually working on the actual system already. So the one with demonstrated capability and the lowest price. So yeah, of course they would choose that one. It makes total sense. How do you protest that? Stay with us. Casey and I will be right back with more of this month's Space Policy Edition. Where did we come from? Are we alone in the cosmos? These are the questions at the core of our existence. And the secrets of the universe are out there waiting to be discovered. But to find them, we have to go into space. We have to explore. This endeavor unites us. Space exploration truly brings out the best in us.

Encouraging people from all walks of life to work together to achieve a common goal. To know the cosmos and our place within it. to know the cosmos and our place within it. This is why the Planetary Society exists. Our mission is to give you the power to advance space science and exploration. With your support we sponsor innovative space technologies, inspire curious minds, and advocate for our future in space. We are the Planetary Society. Join us. You haven't mentioned Congress, which made it pretty clear, even though they were pretty kind to NASA, at least so far.

Congress clearly does not want to throw a lot more, many more billion dollars at development of a human lunar lander. So I would guess that's a factor in addition to the administration change, right? The second point, we're not talking about ULA here or Boeing. I would imagine that Blue Origin and Dynetics, while I'm sure they are well-represented in Washington, they don't have the kind of clout that some other competitors of SpaceX might've had dropping hints after filing a protest like this. Two good points there to think about. So let's take the first one. Congress, you're right. Congress was presented with a

request for $3.3 billion to fund lunar landing. They gave it 850 million. And this isn't just because of partisanship, because there was a divided Congress at the time of the Trump administration. We can look at the, at the time Republican-run Senates proposed to fund NASA in 21, responding to a request from the Republican president. They provided, I think, $1 billion out of the $3.3 billion, right? So they weren't falling over themselves to fund that program either. Congress has not shown much interest in funding it at a high level. Let's not completely dismiss 850 million. That's a nice chunk of change. But that's like science mission level funding, right? I mean, that's like your

peak of James Webb Space Telescope kind of funding, not your usual amount of funding, as other people pointed out, the annual cost of the space launch system and ground systems are about 3 billion a year. The other issue is more, I think, interesting. And this is, to me, the more uncertain path forward is what Congress does. Because let's not forget, it's not just Blue Origin that put this together. This is the national team, right? This is Blue Origin and Lockheed Martin and Draper and Northrop Grumman. I believe Blue Origin's strategy was the political strategy

where they said, we're going to assemble a large enough team so no one can say we don't have the skills because there's enough pre-existing aerospace with them. But you can also say no one can say we don't have the skills because there's enough pre-existing aerospace with them. But you can also say no one can say no because we're going to be spreading so many different jobs around because Northrop Grumman, Lockheed, and Draper, and Blue Origin, those are like all four corners of the country are pretty much represented there and everywhere in between. That's a smart political coalition building move. This is why they have to be more expensive. How can you not be more expensive when you have four large companies pitching something compared to one? And Dynetics is kind of an outlier because they usually do defense department procurement, but I believe they're well represented.

They're based in Alabama, right? So there's a political value there as well. So I think SpaceX actually has the weakest political hand. Interesting. It's as almost as a function. It's the, the, your incentives are reversed in government compared to if you're saving money, right? If you are efficient and lean, you have fewer people and fewer places around the country, and your political coalition is commensurately weaker. And this is why we have things like the Space Launch System being so enduring, right? That will continue to go because it's not efficient, right?

That is the political price of that program. You're already seeing this pushback. price of that program. You're already seeing this pushback. You saw Eddie Bernice Johnson, the chair of the House Science Committee, a Democrat from Texas, criticizing this award. You've seen dismay from the Washington State Senator Maria Cantwell, where Blue Origin is based. And you're going to see, I think, a push from Congress to potentially mandate two providers for human landing system. And that can easily pass without any commensurate increase in funding. That happens all the time, right?

And so the danger here, I think, is that SpaceX does not have a strong political hand, because it's not even securing the support of other Texas members of Congress, which Eddie Bernice Johnson is. It's because they're based, you know, in a couple places, they do not have that same kind of cloud. They can sell things for a lower price. Everyone says they want something for a lower price, right? In government, who works in government, unless it's not being built in your district, at which point, you know, who cares? That to me is the big risk. This is why, again, NASA took a real risk with this in a number of different ways. It's the technical risk, you know, of the ambitious program it invested in.

And there's the political risk about essentially choosing the least spread out embedded classic aerospace contractor. It's going to be in a sense of almost, it could be turned into a public relations issue where they can't, I mean, they can't cancel, you know, Congress is not going to go and cancel this contract, assuming it's held up. But again, they could mandate a second provider and that could either handicap what NASA can do, or they'd better come through with money. At which point, you which point you start saying, how are they going to follow that up? Fascinating.

I had the politics backwards. This will unfold, I assume, fairly quickly. Do we have any idea what the timeline is for considering protests like this? I'd say in general, this can last a number of months. I would imagine we'll know by the end of the year, for sure. But again, we might start to see a political response forming sooner in the next few months, as we see Congress begin to move forward on the budget process for fiscal year 2022. And the potential NASA authorization bill, which is not a funding bill, it sets NASA policy, picking up where it left off from last year's failed attempt to pass one of those. Again, it will be very interesting to see how that plays out.

And I wouldn't be surprised if you see a spike in SpaceX's lobbying expenditures this year, because they're going to have quite a bit of work to do to defend, in a sense, their foothold into this single contract award. I guess the only group that you can count on coming out ahead in a situation like this are all those people on, what is it, K Street in Washington are sure to come out winners. They win. Yeah, everyone wins when there's a big dispute like this. This is what's interesting to me, right? That it's real money, right? Like it's $3 billion. It's not nothing. But it's interesting that in the contract award we saw,

SpaceX is planning to put at least that much in on its own to do this. Jeff Bezos, of course, could find $3 billion in his wallet accidentally or in between the couch sheets if he has to. Nice work if you can get it, yeah. Yeah. And this is where I think they're looking for the imprimatur of NASA on it, right? It's NASA buying into you gives you this credibility. It gives you a certain level of funding stability. And it allows a certain amount of buy-in from a highly respected institution. And there's something else we should mention here.

This whole discussion, this whole debate is about two flights, right? This is what this contract is buying. Let's not forget this. It's buying one uncrewed test flight to land and one two-person test flight, just like the commercial resupply services or the commercial crew program that we saw where they had an uncrewed flight to the station followed by a two-person crew with Bob and Doug launching last year. The actual contract will be a separate contract for Lunar Transportation Services. That's a separate contract. They emphasize this multiple times,

and I think this is getting a little bit lost in the noise here, where anyone can compete for that actual services contract. So if Jeff Bezos wants to continue working on his lunar lander, he can continue to do that and then compete for a lunar landing contract anyway. And NASA can choose maybe more than one lunar lander in that services contract. lunar lander in that services contract. So this story, even if it gets upheld and SpaceX is the only one, the actual process of sending astronauts to the surface is still an open debate. So obviously SpaceX would be expected to win that unless they perform horribly with the development contract. But there's no reason why NASA couldn't select more than horribly with the development contract. But there's no reason

why NASA couldn't select more than one for the services contract. I remember NASA officials making this exact point that they are not freezing out Blue Origin and Dynetics from future opportunities, putting people on the moon. Yeah. Well, look at in commercial cargo, we're seeing the Dream Chaser being added to the fleet of uncrewed vehicles, servicing cargo to the space station long after the first development COTS program ended. That is, again, what is really exciting to me about this larger thing is that when we talk about this sustainability, we're talking about ongoing services, an ongoing open services contract for sending humans to the surface of the moon, which I need to sometimes step back and just remind myself the implications of that phrase. That is really amazing. And we're getting to a very

serious point in this program where things are actually starting to happen. And this is what I've said before, and I will happily say this again, that this decade is going to be the most exciting decade in space since the Apollo era. You want to pinch yourself? Yeah. It's a great decade to be in. And because we're talking seriously about who's going to win a lunar transportation services contract to send astronauts to the moon and back over and over and over again. Imagine that when we'll be landing on the moon, it'll be like launches to the space station where it might get a mention on the, on the news, it'll be but you know, unlike Apollo, that'll be kind of the point.

on the news. It'll be but you know, unlike Apollo, that'll be kind of the point. Right? The point will be that it's supposed to be routine, and that will have an ongoing presence there an open ended presence there. One of the things that were highlighted about the advantages of getting something as ambitious as Starship is that it's so damn big, that it can carry all sorts of stuff to the surface with you bulky and weird shaped things and you can you know it's almost a lunar lander base in and of itself it's so big right when you land well we've talked about how it did more internal volume than the little station that will be orbiting above it right right but again. But again, and people will say, so why do we need all these other things? And let's not get ahead of ourselves, right?

They each serve a different purpose. The Gateway serves as a opportunity for international participation, which adds stability, which adds consistency, and adds that broad-based global investment into this program as well. And you don't just want it all hanging on one thing. There's an interesting consequence too of this program. So one of the big critiques from the Blue Origin protest was that NASA is taking undue risk by selecting a single provider in SpaceX for the human landing system, because it's a single point

of failure. And normally, that's a very salient problem, right? Or you don't want your so-called critical path to depend on one contractor. Because then that one contractor, if they go out of business, if something happens, or they could jack up the prices or whatever, that a lot rides on that one contractor performing. But it's not quite the same as commercial crew, where contractors are providing a very important enabling service. To get to the space station, to have people on the space station is what commercial crew provided. But because we have the space launch System, because we're building the Gateway, sending people around the Moon to the Moon but not landing on it is a completely independent set of programs and hardware that do not depend on the presence or existence of Starship

performing. So you can still have people going to the moon and orbiting it with Gateway for the first time in 50 years, right? Since Apollo 17, even in the context of where Starship isn't performing. So the consequences of the single point of failure, it's not great, but it's not mission ending, right? It doesn't prevent humans from leaving low Earth orbit and going near the moon. So I think that's a subtle but important point.

By selecting a single provider. It's not like the entire program hinges on Starship delivering the landing does, which it's pretty important part, but it's not the only way to get astronauts out into space. And so that gives NASA, I think, some breathing room and allows them to, I think, accept a higher risk posture of that single provider, which by the way, many people in Congress and observers around have always been asking for NASA to take more and more risks. And now they do. And of course, easier said than done.

You made me think a moment or two ago about a quote from our friend, mentor, John Logsdon, member of the Planetary Society Board. He was quoted, in fact, just today as we speak by Jeff Faust in his first up newsletter saying that all this stuff about commercial space and you're talking about regular trips, taking all kinds of cargo and humans to the moon and back. It just kind of causes for John space to lose some of the romance. And he said, that's progress, I suppose. Yeah, John, I'm afraid it is. But I'm with you to a degree. Right. No one knows the names of the people who last flew across the Atlantic 1,600 times this morning, right?

The way that we know Lindbergh's name. Exactly right. Fascinating facets to this that I had not thought about. Are there other issues going on that we should talk about? I'm thinking in particular of some of the initiatives that the Biden administration is working to put through Congress, including that big infrastructure bill. And I have heard NASA mentioned in connection with this, mentioning that NASA has something like $3 billion in deferred maintenance. Is this going to be, if it passes, is this going to be a net positive or a net not positive for NASA and space? I mean, I think it'd be a helpful outcome. NASA has a lot more than 3 billion in deferred maintenance. I think it's in the hundreds of

billions if you do the numbers. Wow. It was an initiative pushed by Bridenstine a few years ago, actually, is to try to up the maintenance accounts for NASA's facilities management. They have something like, I forget, 150 years of deferred maintenance projects that they cannot get through at the current rate. And, you know, NASA is one of the largest owners of physical property in terms of government agencies, even though it's a relatively modest sized government agency. NASA is kind of burdened by huge amounts of physical space and buildings that it kind of doesn't necessarily need, but can't close down again, because of the congressional interest in politics that prevent them from doing so. And so trying to find ways to streamline and

improve that, not to mention modernize them, make them more energy efficient and useful for the current focus of NASA rather than, you know, building Apollo spacecraft back in the 1960s is a good idea. I don't know how much of these large bills address that backlog, but any kind of bonus to NASA is ultimately going to be good for the agency because it'll allow them to modernize, not just in terms of really basic things about, again, energy use and employee happiness, but also to rethink about how it's using facilities and how it can address the needs of the more of this space agency in the 21st century. You know, there's bigger arguments you could make that I think were kind of missed in this bill as an opportunity about NASA itself providing infrastructure as being a part of infrastructure

and building out space infrastructure. Yeah. You know, the bill does take a very expansive view of what infrastructure means. And I think NASA and space could have easily been included in that. And I was somewhat disappointed to see that it wasn't. Casey, I guess we will mostly leave it there. I will note that as we speak, there are pools forming around the world betting on where that Chinese booster is going to come down to Earth, the one that put the first segment

of China's space station into orbit. Are you buying a hard hat? I think, I mean, technically, I have a non-zero chance of being in that debris area like most people in the world, I think. Yeah, I found that somewhat disappointing that they didn't have a better disposal process for that large upper stage rocket. Most countries do and have signed treaties and other agreements saying that they shall. I'll focus more on the fact that I'm excited to see their space station come together.

This is a big deal for them. And I was glad to see the first step being successful. Again, low Earth orbit, again, one of those areas, it's going to be getting very busy up there over the next few years. Yeah. And we're going to have two space stations. It's a more modest space station than the International Space Station. But still, it's not an easy thing to do.

And it is an ambitious construction process that they have over the next few years. And I'm excited to see what that brings to the table and what types of partnerships they can bring to advanced science in low Earth orbit and in microgravity. So, and let's hope that they work on their disposal process for future launches to make sure that they happen safely and in a controlled way. Hopefully the bad PR from this experience will give them a little more incentive. So yeah, two space stations and thousands upon thousands of Starlink satellites up there as well in lower orbit to say nothing of the other constellations. Everyone wants a mega constellation. Yeah. It looks like, yeah, there are people who think that space might just be a good

investment nowadays. I guess that's progress as well, John Logsdon. For good and bad, right? We're going to see when you talk about increasing access to space, that means all sorts of people and actors can participate in it, even if it changes your personal understanding of what space is. And it's one of those things that may be kind of a be careful what you wish for perspective for some people. Absolutely. We're going to keep wishing, though,

that's Casey and me, Casey Dreyer, who is the Senior Space Policy Advisor and Chief Advocate for the Planetary Society. And I'm Matt Kaplan, the host of Planetary Radio. We're going to end this Space Policy Edition, but we will be back in June, probably on the first Friday in the month of June 2021. We hope that you will join us then. And of course, I hope that you will join us for the weekly

Planetary Radio installments. The current one right now, a really fun conversation with Andy Weir, who, by the way, Casey, I talked to him at the end about how he feels about what he sees. And he expressed some optimism about the fact that he sees the bipartisan, or as you said, nonpartisan nature of this and the flow from one administration to another and space coming out ahead. I think the Planetary Society can take a little bit of credit for promoting that high ideal. take a little bit of credit for promoting that high ideal. If you agree, you might want to visit planetary.org slash join and stand behind this effort that is carried so ably, primarily by, well, it's by a lot of us,

but primarily by Casey Dreyer and Brendan Curry in Washington, D.C. Thanks, Matt. That's a great, great message. And I just want to say I'm eager to start in Washington, D.C. Thanks, Matt. That's a great, great message. And I just want to say I'm eager to start in June, our sixth year of doing the show with you still together. I honestly cannot believe it's been five years doing the show. And thank you to everyone who has been listening and making it a successful show and letting us talk about space policy in depth.

I actually think, ironically, our very first episode was about how I didn't care whether it was going to the moon or Mars for humans, just choose one and go. And how much has changed in five years? I'm all talking about going to the moon. It's the only thing. I think, well, you know, the very first episode, if you'll allow me just a minute to reflect on this,

was about how there was a certain kind of stagnation in the discussions of human spaceflight. I believe that we've seen this again, this transformation happening in this last few years, last 10 years, but particularly last five years, where we have broken through at a certain level that the debates that we're having in policy now are all new. A lot of them are so new. Things like

mega constellations being one of them where I have very mixed feelings about them, but it's certainly not a discussion that was occupying a huge part of the space community when we started this show. We're seeing a lot of things start to happen in a way that were not possible, We're seeing a lot of things start to happen in a way that were not possible, partly as a consequence of years of budget cuts, partly as a consequence of new actors coming into the space arena and really starting to see the outcomes of investments being made from previous years. So it's really, we've gone, I think, from a period of kind of endlessly looping stagnation, particularly in human spaceflight, to really, again, starting to see exciting new developments with all sorts of new, interesting problems, particularly policy problems that we're going to have to grapple with. And that's, in a sense, a wonderful problem to have to move out of that. Exciting times, and we're still just getting started. Thanks again, Casey. I'll see you in a month, and probably we'll be talking

before we get together again for the next Space Policy Edition. Looking forward to it, Matt. Thank you.