re: SpaceX wins Moon Human Landing System contract

A few thoughts:

1. Congress didn't give NASA enough budget this year to select two competitors as they wanted to. SpaceX was only selected because they were able to push out part of their funding to later periods. Blue Origin wanted early payments that are not allowed in the RFP and Dynetics, amazingly, is now the highest cost proposal.

2. I hate to see the hometown choice Dynetics (Huntsville) lose out, but NASA had serious concerns about the mass of their lander already being too heavy in its early design stages. Cost wasn't the reason for not selecting their proposal.

3. SpaceX's program management rating was rated the highest of the three. NASA clearly has a lot of confidence in SpaceX's ability to execute, as well as faith in its leader, Gwynne Shotwell. Musk is the visionary while Shotwell is the brilliant business leader keeping it all together. They are an incredible team.

4. This is the official beginning of the end of SLS. The way NASA worded the announcement gives them a political out.

5. NASA didn't want to be left behind. How embarrassing it would be if SpaceX went to the moon first without NASA.