Just minutes after I posted about his ride to the edge of space, Jeff Bezos made some news. He’s offering to forego a lot of money to be reconsidered to build the lunar lander. Elon Musk’s SpaceX won the solo contract with the Starship the company is building. Many expected NASA to hire two contractors. But the agency said it only had enough money for one.
Blue Origin has enlisted help of members of Congress to change NASA’s mind. Now Bezos is pitching in $2 billion!
Key points:
Blue Origin will, at its own cost, contribute the development and launch of a pathfinder mission to low-Earth orbit of the lunar descent element to further retire development and schedule risks. This pathfinder mission is offered in addition to the baseline plan of performing a precursor uncrewed landing mission prior to risking any astronauts to the Moon. This contribution to the program is above and beyond the over $1B of corporate contribution cited in our Option A proposal that funds items such as our privately developed BE-7 lunar lander engine and indefinite storage of liquid hydrogen in space. All of these contributions are in addition to the $2B waiver of payments referenced above.
I will be writing about getting back to the moon down the road.. but for now...
His letter to the NASA Administrator can be found here:
https://blueorigin.com/news-archive/open-letter-to-administrator-nelson
