I think part of why it is going to fit in its budget is because SpaceX is willing to fund some of the development costs out of its own pockets, to an extent that other bidders were not.
SpaceX is designing a multi-purpose architecture in which the lunar lander is just a variant of a craft intended for other commercial purposes (Starlink launches, commercial launch customers, space tourism, etc), so it can share development costs between the lunar lander and its own commercial investment – the other bidders were proposing bespoke vehicles with little potential for other commercial uses.
SpaceX is also a young company with a high-risk strategy of betting the company on massive growth in the space industry–which is another reason why it is more willing to invest its own money (or its private investors money) than trying to get the taxpayers to carry 100% of development costs. Its competitors are mostly older companies with a far more conservative, financially risk-adverse strategy. (Blue Origin is in a kind of odd position, of being not much older than SpaceX, yet seemingly having a culture more in common with those old conservative firms.)
> I wonder if for the first time in history one of these space programs can deliver on the original budget?
I don't think it would be a first, since previous contracts (such as COTS and Commercial Crew) were both awarded as fixed price contracts.
To my knowledge, SpaceX didn't go back and ask for more money beyond the fixed-price contract. So both of those were already delivered (or are being delivered actively) on budget.
But, this award is following in those footsteps to use fixed-price contracts as a way to control costs and ensure the programs don't run wildly overbudget.
SpaceX already did that with commercial crew. The program is set up as a fixed-price contract. SpaceX missed on the dates, but is delivering the services that were promised inside the original budget.
1. Ambitious space programs require solving unknown unknowns. You can't accurately budget for that.
2. Well, yes, you can budget for that by adding a large fudge factor to the cost of your program.
3. Which will mean that your program will not get funded.
NASA generally does a good job of being in the ballpark of its budget for its ambitious goals. Which, ever since Apollo, have been its unmanned programs.
The manned space shuttle, and the ISS, as well as all the hoop-a-la around getting people to the ISS are on the other hand not particularly ambitious, and are also a bottomless money pit (Ballpark cost of ISS was ~160 billion dollars. The ballpark cost of a rover mission to Mars is less than 3 billion dollars.)
> hoop-a-la around getting people to the ISS are on the other hand not particularly ambitious, and are also a bottomless money pit
While this was at one time true, I don't think it's fair to say anymore, given that the Commercial Crew contracts issued were fixed price contracts, and have been delivered by SpaceX on that fixed price contract.
1. The cost of the flight is a small part of the overall cost of getting an astronaut to the ISS, which itself is a small part of the overall cost of keeping him alive there.
2. Fifty years after the last Apollo flight, and twenty years into ISS flights, the costs of the flights have finally been brought under control. That's not exactly a shining medal for NASA's manned space program. I will say again - it's a bottomless money pit.
