Jeff Bezos Wants to Run for the Moon Again – Offers $2 Billion

NASA aims to take people to the Moon again, preferably as early as 2024. In April Ghaf NASA $2.89 billion contract with Elon Musk and Spacex to build a lunar lander.

Artemis’ goal, as the new moon landing program is called, is to establish itself on the moon more long-term than the Apollo program did.

in it first phase In the project, three companies participated in the match: Spacex, Blue Origin and defense contractor Dynetics. It was then expected that NASA would award two of these contracts to build lunar landers. But in the absence of funding, they chose only Spacex, and NASA cited one reason that Spacex was able to perform well on previous missions.

Blue Origin appealed the decision to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which is tasked with reviewing US government agencies and federal departments, as they believe the last-minute changes were in Spacex’s favour. A decision is expected from the Government Accountability Office no later than 4th of August, which may be the reason for a new attempt by Bezos to join Artemis.

Can imagine bearing the costs themselves

in the open Mail Addressing NASA President Bill Nelson, Bezos wrote that they may consider covering the program’s budget shortfall by withholding up to $2 billion over the next fiscal year. This is to get the program back on track according to Bezos.

The design of the two companies’ lunar probes differs, something Bezos also noted in his letter. Spacex’s lunar lander, Starship, is a rocket that will land upright. During many test flights, however, its prototypes exploded.

On the other hand, Blue Origin introduced a lunar lander very similar to the one in the Apollo program, four legs with landing plates and a larger, shapeless module in the middle. In his letter to Bill Nelson, Bezos emphasized this and how the design rewards crew safety.

Recently approved The US Senate has proposed a competition proposal that would require NASA to select at least two companies for the lunar landing program and provide the program with an additional budget for that purpose, among other things.

However, the proposal must go through additional steps before it can be adopted and has received some criticism, for example, Senator Bernie Sanders called it “Bezos Bailout.” The proposal in and of itself doesn’t mean Blue Origin will get the contract, but Bezos sure wants to get involved and take man to the moon again.