Photo: Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images). / Getty Images
Jeff Bezos, considered one of the richest men in the world, wrote an open letter to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, in which he offers to cover for an amount of $ 2, 000 million dollars a mission to the moon with Blue Origin, and the lander contract.
Bezos says he “has the financial position to do so”, which suggests that he seems to have the intention of competing to win the space race against Elon Musk with SpaceX that is already ahead of him with the concession to build a vehicle for $ 2, 900 million dollars.
Lo which turned a mission to the moon into a space race between the two billionaires, Musk and Bezos. When the Space Agency awarded the concession as sole contractor to SpaceX, Bezos was not at all satisfied and opposed the decision .
Blue Origin had proposed for the HLS (Human Landing System) program, a joint work in what would be a “national team” in which would be those government contractors who work on this frequently. And then design a lunar lander that would service the Gateway space station.
But the winning proposal was that of SpaceX who proposed to use what they call a Starship. A giant spacecraft and rocket system now under development in Texas.
With this Starship, Musk’s company intends to bring humans to the planet Mars, but the version for the lunar program Artemis is a modification.
Now Bezos offers to cover all expenses, including additional expenses: “Blue Origin will cover the financial deficit of the HLS budget, waiving all payments in the current fiscal year and the next two ”. In this regard, he specified that it is not a matter of postponing payments, but that he is “giving up completely.”
For the founder of Blue Origin, it is necessary to promote healthy competition between private companies willing to give money, and while NASA continues to prepare its trip to the moon. Otherwise, Bezos thinks that the US government will regret assuming all the expenses.
“Without competition, NASA’s short-term and long-term lunar ambitions will be delayed, ultimately cost more, and will not serve the national interest.”
For him 2024 NASA has scheduled to land the first woman and the next man with the Artemis project. The last time this was done was in 1972 with an Apollo expedition, the number 17.
After Bezos’s open letter to NASA with this multi-million dollar offer has yet to be knows the answer , however, we know that even if your proposal is accepted, you will still have to compete with SpaceX for the final lunar module.
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