Tesseracts wrote:In this age of falsehoods and lies, it's comforting to know some people are genuinely idiots.
However, according to Lori Garver, a former NASA deputy administrator, the company offered the US government a chance to fly whatever payload it wanted — free of charge — before deciding on Musk's car.
"I was told by a SpaceX VP at the launch that they offered free launches to NASA, Air Force etc. but got no takers. A student developed experiment or early tech demo could have led to even more new knowledge from the mission," Garver tweeted on Thursday. "The Tesla gimmick was the backup."
SpaceX and NASA didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for more details about the offer and why it was declined.
Garver later suggested that the offer may have come too late or too casually to be taken seriously by NASA, the Air Force, and other divisions SpaceX may have contacted. It can take several years and millions of dollars to build and test even a small satellite that can function in the harsh environment of space.
"I have no idea when Elon decided on the car & the opportunity offered to the govt could have been for smaller payloads, low cost v. free etc.," Garver tweeted. "I'm sure [SpaceX] would call the car idea brilliant & provocative."
"If only informal inquiries were made & there was no serious interest, that is understandable," she said, adding that this is especially true for a first-time vehicle, and with a late inquiry.
"Tesla had to have been planned for awhile," Garver said.
SpaceX will drop its lawsuit against the U.S. Air Force in exchange for the service making more national security launch missions available for competition, the two parties announced Jan. 23.
The Air Force would also move faster on its efforts to certify SpaceX to launch military satellites as part of the agreement.
The move comes less than two weeks after the sides entered mediation over an $11 billion sole-source contract the Air Force gave United Launch Alliance of Denver.
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