The contract terms have not been released but milestone payments are usually provisional payments against eventual completion of the contract.

In the event that NASA cancels the contract they would still have to pay SpaceX for all milestones achieved. In the event that SpaceX cancels the contract they would likely have to repay these provisional milestone based payments but as you say we cannot be sure.

It is however likely that if they did cancel they would never get another NASA contract unless there was a remarkably good reason such as discovering that in orbit propellant transfer was never going to work.

Fair points. It’ll be an interesting race to follow.

I’ve seen the claim before that they’d have to pay back milestone payments but I don’t recall ever seeing any evidence of that. I doubt it’s true. They got paid for work completed.

Berger believes BO will beat SpaceX to a human landing.

He's wrong.

This is a NASA presentation so they just pick whatever photos and renders they have been provided by SpaceX so I wouldn’t read too much into them.

I know, but the rest of the SpaceX milestone images seem fairly accurate. My point is if it's just for the ship, they could have put a ship image there easily, since they already have many ship images. Instead they went out and find a booster cryo photo, which is not that easy to find. If they put in this effort, I think they want to tell us this is about the booster.

Yes, this is why I think BO's actual timeline will be so much longer than SpaceX's, it's not close as this presentation made out to be. This makes the opinion that BO is ahead even more perplexing.

Wow that's a lot to take in, while I do that, what's your opinion on the gasifier? The Space Engineer on X is saying SpaceX is building this to maintain tank pressure on the ship, among other things. Seems to me this will have the exact same problem you're describing?

I don’t personally think Blue are “ahead” per se. I do though think that if Blue are indeed moving to an architecture that doesn’t require orbital refilling then SpaceX’s architecture is much more susceptible to major delays and setbacks.

I think the correct characterization is that SpaceX architecture has more unknown unknowns, this doesn't necessarily mean it's more susceptible to major delays and setbacks, it could be, or it could be fairly straight forward like the booster catch, we just don't know.

But we do know bringing a new launch vehicle (and a new pad) online is more susceptible to major delays and setbacks, that's unique to Blue Origin's timeline since SpaceX already got V3 Starship flying.

So I think both these timelines are hilariously optimistic, but I think Blue may well be ready in, say, 2030 while SpaceX will be a year or two later.

I think SpaceX's prop transfer's timeline is uncertain, but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll be significantly late. The rest of the SpaceX's timeline look reasonable to me, maybe they'll have a few months of delay, but not years of delay like Blue Origin's.

I also think SpaceX are much more likely than Blue to renege on the contract entirely.

I agree with you here, but I don't think they'll renege the contract, they'll do it if only just for PR reasons.

Rubio does not even know what he is talking about, sadly:

https://news.bgov.com/bloomberg-government-news/spacex-gets-us-contract-to-expand-ukraines-access-to-starshield

Ty!

https://www.reddit.com/r/SpaceXMasterrace/s/4STWNm7Aos

A thread appeared on twitter with a video of the new Glenn explosion from the pad and a long list of construction issues.

I can't find anything on deaths or injuries during the rebuild, do you have sauce?

With the death and major injuries at the pad rebuild I have big doubts about New Glenn launching this year. They have been rushing, taking shortcuts, and still have tons to do.

This is a NASA presentation so they just pick whatever photos and renders they have been provided by SpaceX so I wouldn’t read too much into them.

SpaceX presentations seem to be more tightly tied into the engineering teams so you can infer a bit more from them.

Reneging altogether seems hideously unlikely as they would have to pay back their progress payments.

Slow walking delivery to the point where they have the contract cancelled by NASA is at least a possibility. However Elon is enough of a billionaire to not want to lose out to Bezos so I can’t see it happening.

True enough but 9x4 is very much at the design stage while Starship 3 is launching.

You misunderstand me. I’m suggesting the vehicles we’re saying are for Flight 15 are actually destined for getting on the barge and going to Florida for Flight 16, while the vehicle we thought were for Flight 16 are actually staying in Starbase for Flight 15.

This would speed everything up for Flight 16, while perhaps causing Flight 15 to be a bit later than otherwise (but I’m still expecting Flight 15 from Starbase before Flight 16 from Florida.)

There are critics of the Falcon 9 still and people complaining that it is still unreliable. Critics will just be critics and never look at success no matter how much it smacks them in the face.

The last flight of Starship had going to orbit something of a novelty and the engineers are still getting used to the operational phase of having it in orbit right now. Several things come to mind as to why the last mission was cut short, but having one of the Raptor engines fail shortly after launch is among them. The Raptor engine is still in testing and being developed, not to mention that SpaceX has already moved on to another version of the Raptor being tested at McGregor right now. That matters because the Raptor being relit is a key part of getting out of orbit and being able to get to an ideal re-entry attitude.

The other issue that I haven't seen addressed elsewhere is simply power to keep the avionics running. The flights have all been short enough that batteries along with small electric generators connected to the turbo pumps on the Raptor engines providing a modest amount of power is all that they have to work with right now. No doubt some sort of solar panel will eventually be added to the vehicle, but for now it is strictly battery powered. This is normal for most spacecraft too I might add.

I think it’s like 2-3 hours now.

Watching happy Gilmore try to putt makes me anxious. Its good, because that way I can relate to life for people around me, watching me putt

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/4175635-rubio-says-ukraine-does-not-have-access-to-starshield.html

Rubio stating that Ukraine doesn’t have access to Starshield and has been using Starlink makes everything much more confusing.

Sure, put it aside.

But why get the SPMT?