> No really but Congress had put them in an impossible position so I think they didn't have a choice.
It's an "impossible" situation they've been in many times before and had a standard strategy to weasel out of: award the contract for more money than Congress has allocated, and then slip the project to the right until you get enough money. Every large NASA contract has worked this way, even their contracts with SpaceX -- Commercial Crew (aka Crew Dragon) was several years late because the project was underfunded in its initial years.
SpaceX's $3B bid for HLS broke this unwritten convention.
It's an "impossible" situation they've been in many times before and had a standard strategy to weasel out of: award the contract for more money than Congress has allocated, and then slip the project to the right until you get enough money. Every large NASA contract has worked this way, even their contracts with SpaceX -- Commercial Crew (aka Crew Dragon) was several years late because the project was underfunded in its initial years.
SpaceX's $3B bid for HLS broke this unwritten convention.