I’m shocked Blue Origin would compete in such a men’s spirited way ? Or am I misunderstanding something here as a naive britbong
Not that it stopped Bezos from lobbying for a second round of HLS contracts and securing a contract for Blue Origin anyway. But at least that resulted in a second HLS - instead of SpaceX's contract being clawed back.
What may doom it is the fact that Elon Musk has pissed off basically everyone, because means that he and his businesses are running into a lot of political danger, so he may find his space stuff banned for non-technical reasons.
In truth, Starship needs orbital refueling to get to the Moon - but so does Blue Moon HLS. Artemis depends on someone being able to figure orbital propellant storage and fuel transfer either way.
Which may have been a conscious decision by NASA. Orbital propellant storage and refueling are technologies that unlock a lot of capabilities - so if you get into a silly race with China over who gets to reenact Apollo 11 first, you might as well get that out of it.
Previously, there were a few rather suspicious "environmental groups" hounding SpaceX - the understanding was that someone was funding them to try to throw a wrench in SpaceX's plans. This here looks like more of the same.