Earlier this month Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin sued NASA over a moon lander contract awarded to SpaceX.
Now Mashable reports that “America’s next trip to the moon may suddenly be delayed a bit thanks to…PDFs?”
A U.S. federal judge has granted the Department of Justice a week-long extension in its lawsuit with Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin. The reason? Large PDF files…
According to the DOJ, there is more than 7 GB of data related to the case. However, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims’ online system allows for only files of up to 50 MB in size to be uploaded. This all amounts to “several hundred” PDFs, including other file formats that would be converted to PDFs. The DOJ says it also sought to convert multiple separate documents into individual PDF batches but explained that those larger files could cause the upload system to crash. “We have tried several different ways to create 50-megabyte files for more efficient filing, all without success thus far,” the DOJ said.
Instead of using the online file system, the U.S. government will transfer the documents for the case to DVDs.
Futurism reports the situation was exacerbated “because the agency staff that could have fixed the issue were at the 36th Annual Space Symposium last week.”
On Twitter, space reporter Joey Roullete notes the judge’s ruling means an additional one-week stay before the awarding of SpaceX’s contract..
Or, as Mashable puts it, “Space exploration is currently on hold thanks to a lawsuit and a slew of pesky PDF files.”
Read more of this story at Slashdot.