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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Blue Origin are looking to partner with NASA and ESA to help create settlements on the Moon. However, he implied that he would fund development of such a project himself if governments don't:
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos says his Blue Origin space venture will work with NASA as well as the European Space Agency to create a settlement on the moon. And even if Blue Origin can't strike public-private partnerships, Bezos will do what needs to be done to make it so, he said here at the International Space Development Conference on Friday night.
[...] To facilitate a return to the moon, Blue Origin has a lunar lander on the drawing boards that's designed to be capable of delivery 5 tons of payload to the lunar surface. That's hefty enough to be used for transporting people — and with enough support, it could start flying by the mid-2020s. Blue Origin has proposed building its Blue Moon lander under the terms of a public-private partnership with NASA. "By the way, we'll do that, even if NASA doesn't do it," Bezos said. "We'll do it eventually. We could do it a lot faster if there were a partnership."
[...] It's important to point out that moon settlement isn't just a NASA thing. Bezos told me he loves the European Space Agency's approach, known as the Moon Village. "The Moon Village concept has a nice property in that everybody basically just says, look, everybody builds their own lunar outpost, but let's do it close to each other. That way, if you need a cup of sugar, you can go over to the European Union lunar outpost and say, 'I got my powdered eggs, what have you got?' ... Obviously I'm being silly with the eggs, but there will be real things, like, 'Do you have some oxygen?' "
So how far is Blue Origin willing to go? Bezos has already committed the company to build rockets and landers. How about rovers, habitats and all the other hardware that a moon base will need? "We'll do anything we need to do," Bezos said. "I hope we don't need to do any of that. I want other people to do it. But if need be, we'll do it."
Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross published an editorial in The New York Times (archive) emphasizing a return to the Moon and President Trump's recent Space Policy Directive 2 (here's the first one).
Just don't call it a colony.
Also at TechCrunch and Engadget.
Rebuttal: Dear Jeff Bezos: Forget About The Stupid Moon
Previously: Jeff Bezos' Vision for Space: One Trillion Population in the Solar System
ESA Expert Envisions "Moon Village" by 2030-2050
Related: How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently
Bigelow Aerospace Forms New Company to Manage Space Stations, Announces Gigantic Inflatable Module
Blue Origin to Compete to Launch U.S. Military Payloads
2020s to Become the Decade of Lunar Re-Exploration
Blue Origin Conducts its First Successful Suborbital Test Flight and Landing of 2018
Lunar Regolith Simulants Damage Cells
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Serious About Returning to the Moon
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:56AM (4 children)
It's a capitalist space race! The first to a moon/mars base: Amazon vs. some dork on a couch!
I want to root for the dork on the couch. However, that means that Amazon will win.
In totally unrelated news, I think the Musky One's problem is that he is not [consortiumnews.com] chums with the CIA [theatlantic.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:21AM (1 child)
I'd be pretty careful signing up for Bezo's moon outpost. He's likely to renege on the return trip and leave you there.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @04:58AM
But it's got Free Shipping!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @01:38PM (1 child)
So if Blue and X really wanted to get humanity safely off this planet, they would be working together.
Instead, they are playing my thing is bigger than yours.
It kind of limits the credibility of Blue's long term story.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday May 29 2018, @02:42PM
Blue Origin isn't "playing" on SpaceX's turf until New Glenn [wikipedia.org] launches. SpaceX isn't playing an ego game or dick waving contest with Blue Origin, they are just getting things done. SpaceX can't lose customers to Blue Origin until Blue Origin has the right rocket(s).
Blue Origin could license its superior BE-4 engine to other companies, particularly ULA.
Some customers, particularly NASA and the U.S. Air Force, desire multiple launch providers. They don't want to be hit by months of delays if something goes wrong with one of them.
Bezos and Musk have different visions. Bezos wants to move heavy industries into orbit and is more interested in the Moon than Mars. Musk wants permanent colonization of Mars, and soon.
I guess you could argue that if Bezos invested a billion dollars in SpaceX, or bought a larger amount of services from them, then SpaceX would have more cash with which to accelerate BFR development. But SpaceX is continuing apace anyway.
Does it matter if SpaceX is one to five years closer to facilitating Mars colonization? Maybe it does if you think that humanity is on the verge of a global nuclear war or other species-threatening event.
You want some kind of cooperation instead of the competition that is happening. But we can already see that SpaceX has forced other launch providers, such as ULA and Ariane, to think seriously about reusability and launch costs. The competition is having a positive effect that will greatly lower the cost of access to space, and through lower $/kg, make colonies on the Moon or Mars much more feasible. Maybe SpaceX and Blue Origin really are "working together", having entered into an industry (in 2000-2002) that was previously stagnant.
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