NASA News Conference - Moon Base Program

[glend]

I was just reading that NASA is holding a News conference tomorrow at 430am AEDT, to announce the partnership with private enterprise to "return to the Moon to stay". I would guess that SpaceX is part of this, given that the BFR is nearly ready and Musk has sold the first lunar tourist flight already. I hope it's is not another of these NASA announcements that lacks substance, but actually outlines who does what and when.

https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/nasa-preparing-first-journey-to-the-moon-in-46-years/news-story/06160ff76c4ab430ab4db7d706ca97a0

[glend]

Hmm, so SpaceX is not on the list of contractors for NASAs return to the Moon program.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2018/11/nasa-names-private-companies-that-will-help-it-send-science-experiments-to-the-moon/amp

Given the lead that SpaceX seems to already have, I wonder at the inclusion of some of these very small players with no delivery capability. Is Musk going it alone? Is NASA trying to create competitors to lower costs? Is NASA afraid of SpaceX dominance?

[pluto]

I believe this was about partnering with companies to produce spacecraft to land on the Moon to deliver experiments, not about launch services. I'd expect many of these companies, with the obvious exception of LM, will use SpaceX to deliver their spacecraft at least to LEO or perhaps even a Lunar transfer orbit.