Jeff Bezos in Space: "The best day ever"
NASA chooses SpaceX for the next mission to the Moon
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July 27, 2021 After the successful suborbital flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard spacecraft with three space tourists aboard, Jeff Bezos tries again with the Moon.
The Amazon tycoon and founder wrote an
open letter
to NASA offering a $ 2 billion discount to allow his company to build a lander for the moon.
The $ 2.9 billion Human Landing System (HLS) contract was awarded to rival SpaceX in April, but Blue Origin and a third Dynetics company filed protests that are currently pending. judgment by the US Government Accountability Office.
NASA's Artemis program aims to bring astronauts back to the moon by 2024 as a springboard for the first human mission to Mars.
In his letter to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, Bezos said the offer would "close the funding gap" that led the space agency to choose only one contractor, rather than two that would then compete with each other. He added "This offer is not a deferral, but it is a definitive and permanent waiver of such payments."
Since losing the award, Blue Origin has lobbied for the decision to be reversed, leading the Senate to pass a bill agreeing to add $ 10 billion to the human lander system. But the legislation is still under discussion in the House, and has been branded by critics as a "Bezos bailout".
Bezos wrote that an advantage of the Blue Origin Blue Moon lander is its use of liquid hydrogen for fuel, which can be extracted from lunar ice, in line with NASA's plans to use the Moon to refuel rockets for deeper operations. in the solar system. He added that the company will test its lander in Earth orbit at its own expense. "We are ready to help NASA moderate its technical risks and resolve its budget constraints and put the Artemis program back on a more competitive, credible and sustainable path," concluded Bezos. It is unclear whether Bezos' last-minute intervention will affect the outcome of the award.