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SpaceX, NASA celebrate Blue Origin’s lunar lander lawsuit loss and get back to work
In a November 9th press conference, NASA leaders have begun to publicly celebrate the end of seven months of Blue Origin litigation and disruption to its Human Landing System (HLS). A federal court’s dismissal of that lawsuit means that the space agency can finally get back to work with SpaceX on its Starship Moon lander.
Following the failure of that lawsuit, NASA administrator Bill Nelson says that it will take the space agency some time to fully determine what and how much damage Blue Origin has caused. In the briefing, Nelson and associate administrators Kathy Lueders and Jim Free confirmed that Dynetics’ protest and Blue Origin’s protest and lawsuit have delayed SpaceX’s first crewed Starship Moon landing to no earlier than (NET) 2025.
Painfully, though, the briefing primarily focused on NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft and the latest news about the system and the space agency’s attitude towards it are not encouraging.
Namely, exemplifying just how broken and deceptive NASA’s cost “transparency” is when it comes to SLS and Orion, the space agency used the briefing to announce its first updated Orion cost projections in more than half a decade. All the way back in September 2015, NASA announced major Orion delays and revealed that it had already spent $4.7B on the spacecraft and was committing another $6.7B through its first crewed launch – then scheduled no earlier than 2023.
That’s likely where NASA is getting its magically diminished Orion cost estimate. In reality, including Bush-era Constellation Program development that began in 2006, Orion will have cost NASA and the US taxpayer almost $22 billion by the end of 2021 and before a single full-up launch. Effectively doing the bare minimum to acknowledge a sanitized version of reality, NASA now says that Orion will cost at least $9.3 billion to its first crewed launch, which has been delayed to NET May 2024. It’s entirely unclear how NASA is calculating that deflated figure but in the six years since the space agency’s 2015 announcement that it would spend another $6.7B before Orion’s first crewed launch, it’s actually spent at least $8.4B and will have blown past the latest $9.3B target by mid-2022. Barring drastic funding cuts, Orion development will actually cost the US about $12.6B from 2016 to Artemis II and ~$25.8B since 2006 (not including inflation).
In an even starker demonstration of cognitive dissonance, when a New York Times reporter asked a hard question about the possibility of sidestepping Orion and SLS to get astronauts onto SpaceX’s Starship lunar lander, Administrator Nelson – having just repeatedly discussed Starship – fell back on an old boilerplate statement that “there’s only one rocket capable of doing this” – “this” being launching humans to the Moon and returning them to Earth and that “one rocket” being SLS. Association admin Jim Free also exhibited similar confusion, stating that “the architecture…just wouldn’t work.”
In reality, as currently contracted with NASA, SpaceX’s Starship Moon lander is a highly capable crewed spacecraft that will be refueled in Earth orbit before propelling itself to lunar orbit, where an SLS-launched Orion spacecraft would join it and transfer over three astronauts. Starship would then use its own propulsion to change orbits, land on the Moon, and eventually boost back into lunar orbit to transfer that crew back to Orion for the return to Earth. Nothing short of sheer ignorance – willful or not – could prevent competent spaceflight engineers or managers from understanding the possibilities such an architecture raises.
If NASA is already committed to human-rating Starship’s propulsion systems, which it is, it doesn’t take a grand leap of imagination to consider the possibility of adding a few more burns to Starship’s extremely complex concept of operations. If, for example, Starship has enough performance to return to Earth orbit from the lunar surface, it’s not hard to imagine NASA’s Artemis astronauts boarding Starship in Earth orbit after a far cheaper commercial launch and then returning to Earth orbit to debark Starship and return to that crew-rated reentry vehicle. As it turns out, NASA already has a highly successful crew-rated commercial rocket and spacecraft that’s already operational and likely more than 10 times cheaper than SLS/Orion.
While there are obvious challenges and uncertainties with such an option, the point is more that failing to even acknowledge the possibility of alternatives is a brutal appraisal of several of NASA’s most senior leaders and confirms that the politics of a jobs program like SLS/Orion is actively disrupting their ability to engage with reality and properly manage complex, risky programs.
Ultimately, it’s great news that SpaceX and NASA can finally get back to work on their Starship Moon lander plans. However, it’s also clearer than ever that SLS and Orion will remain a noose precariously balanced around the agency’s neck, forever threatening the Artemis Program and stifling NASA’s ability to seriously plan for – let alone publicly entertain or even acknowledge – contingencies or fresh ideas.
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Tesla hosts Rome Mayor for first Italian FSD Supervised road demo
The event marked the first time an Italian mayor tested the advanced driver-assistance system in person in Rome’s urban streets.
Tesla definitely seems to be actively engaging European officials on FSD’s capabilities, with the company hosting Rome Mayor Roberto Gualtieri and Mobility Assessor Eugenio Patanè for a hands-on road demonstration.
The event marked the first time an Italian mayor tested the advanced driver-assistance system in person in Rome’s urban streets. This comes amid Tesla’s push for FSD’s EU regulatory approvals in the coming year.
Rome officials experience FSD Supervised
Tesla conducted the demo using a Model 3 equipped with Full Self-Driving (Supervised), tackling typical Roman traffic including complex intersections, roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and mixed users like cars, bikes and scooters.
The system showcased AI-based assisted driving, prioritizing safety while maintaining flow. FSD also handled overtakes and lane decisions, though with constant driver supervision.
Investor Andrea Stroppa detailed the event on X, noting the system’s potential to reduce severe collision risks by up to seven times compared to traditional driving, based on Tesla’s data from billions of global fleet miles. The session highlighted FSD’s role as an assistance tool in its Supervised form, not a replacement, with the driver fully responsible at all times.
Path to European rollout
Tesla has logged over 1 million kilometers of testing across 17 European countries, including Italy, to refine FSD for local conditions. The fact that Rome officials personally tested FSD Supervised bodes well for the program’s approval, as it suggests that key individuals are closely watching Tesla’s efforts and innovations.
Assessor Patanè also highlighted the administration’s interest in technologies that boost road safety and urban travel quality, viewing them as aids for both private and public transport while respecting rules.
Replies on X urged involving Italy’s Transport Ministry to speed approvals, with one user noting, “Great idea to involve the mayor! It would be necessary to involve components of the Ministry of Transport and the government as soon as possible: it’s they who can accelerate the approval of FSD in Italy.”
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Tesla FSD (Supervised) blows away French journalist after test ride
Cadot described FSD as “mind-blowing,” both for the safety of the vehicle’s driving and the “humanity” of its driving behaviors.
Tesla’s Full Self-Driving (Supervised) seems to be making waves in Europe, with French tech journalist Julien Cadot recently sharing a positive first-hand experience from a supervised test drive in France.
Cadot, who tested the system for Numerama after eight years of anticipation since early Autopilot trials, described FSD as “mind-blowing,” both for the safety of the vehicle’s driving and the “humanity” of its driving behaviors.
Julien Cadot’s FSD test in France
Cadot announced his upcoming test on X, writing in French: “I’m going to test Tesla’s FSD for Numerama in France. 8 years I’ve been waiting to relive the sensations of our very first contact with the unbridled Autopilot of the 2016s.” He followed up shortly after with an initial reaction, writing: “I don’t want to spoil too much because as media we were allowed to film everything and I have a huge video coming… But: it’s mind-blowing! Both for safety and for the ‘humanity’ of the choices.”
His later posts detailed FSD’s specific maneuvers that he found particularly compelling. These include the vehicle safely overtaking a delivery truck by inches, something Cadot said he personally would avoid to protect his rims, but FSD handled flawlessly. He also praised FSD’s cyclist overtakes, as the system always maintained the required 1.5-meter distance by encroaching on the opposite lane when clear. Ultimately, Cadot noted FSD’s decision-making prioritized safety and advancement, which is pretty remarkable.
FSD’s ‘human’ edge over Autopilot
When asked if FSD felt light-years ahead of standard Autopilot, Cadot replied: “It’s incomparable, it’s not the same language.” He elaborated on scenarios like bypassing a parked delivery truck across a solid white line, where FSD assessed safety and proceeded just as a human driver might, rather than halting indefinitely. This “humanity” impressed Cadot the most, as it allowed FSD to fluidly navigate real-world chaos like urban Paris traffic.
Tesla is currently hard at work pushing for the rollout of FSD to several European countries. Recent reports have revealed that Tesla has received approval to operate 19 FSD test vehicles on Spain’s roads, though this number could increase as the program develops. As per the Dirección General de Tráfico (DGT), Tesla would be able to operate its FSD fleet on any national route across Spain. Recent job openings also hint at Tesla starting FSD tests in Austria. Apart from this, the company is also holding FSD demonstrations in Germany, France, and Italy.
Tesla Optimus showed off its newest capability as progress on the project continues to accelerate toward an ultimate goal of mass production in the coming years.
Tesla is still developing Optimus and preparing for the first stages of mass production, where units would be sold and shipped to customers. CEO Elon Musk has always marketed the humanoid robot as the biggest product in history, even outside of Tesla, but of all time.
He believes it will eliminate the need to manually perform monotonous tasks, like cleaning, mowing the lawn, and folding laundry.
However, lately, Musk has revealed even bigger plans for Optimus, including the ability to relieve humans of work entirely within the next 20 years.
JUST IN: Elon Musk says working will be ‘optional’ in less than 20 years because of AI and robotics. pic.twitter.com/l3S5kl5HBB
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) November 30, 2025
Development at Tesla’s Artificial Intelligence and Robotics teams has progressed, and a new video was shown of the robot taking a light jog with what appeared to be some pretty natural form:
Just set a new PR in the lab pic.twitter.com/8kJ2om7uV7
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) December 2, 2025
Optimus has also made several public appearances lately, including one at the Neural Information Processing Systems, or NeurIPS Conference. Some spectators shared videos of Optimus’s charging rig, as well as its movements and capabilities, most interestingly, the hand:
You have to hand it to Elon 🤟 pic.twitter.com/fZKDlmGAbe
— Ric Burton · NeurIPS 2025 (@_ricburton) December 2, 2025
The hand, forearm, and fingers have been one of the most evident challenges for Tesla in recent times, especially as it continues to work on its 3rd Generation iteration of Optimus.
Musk said during the Q3 Earnings Call:
“I don’t want to downplay the difficulty, but it’s an incredibly difficult thing, especially to create a hand that is as dexterous and capable as the human hand, which is incredible. The human hand is an incredible thing. The more you study the human hand, the more incredible you realize it is, and why you need four fingers and a thumb, why the fingers have certain degrees of freedom, why the various muscles are of different strengths, and fingers are of different lengths. It turns out that those are all there for a reason.”
The interesting part of the Optimus program so far is the fact that Tesla has made a lot of progress with other portions of the project, like movement, for example, which appears to have come a long way.
However, without a functional hand and fingers, Optimus could be rendered relatively useless, so it is evident that it has to figure this crucial part out first.
Tesla hosts Rome Mayor for first Italian FSD Supervised road demo
Tesla FSD (Supervised) blows away French journalist after test ride
