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Title    Jeff Bezos Details Moon Settlement Ambitions in Interview
Date    Monday May 28 2018, @05:44PM
Author    martyb
Topic   
from the it-takes-a-[moon]-village dept.
https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/28/1443236

takyon writes:

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


Original Submission

Links

  1. "takyon" - https://soylentnews.org/~takyon/
  2. "Blue Origin" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Origin
  3. "create settlements on the Moon" - https://www.geekwire.com/2018/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-venture-go-moon-settlements/
  4. "editorial in The New York Times" - https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/24/opinion/that-moon-colony-will-be-a-reality-sooner-than-you-think.html
  5. "archive" - http://archive.is/QwoIf
  6. "Space Policy Directive 2" - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-reforming-modernizing-american-commercial-space-policy/
  7. "here's the first one" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/12/12/1130258
  8. "don't call it a colony" - http://www.newsweek.com/should-we-colonize-space-some-people-argue-we-need-decolonize-it-instead-945130
  9. "TechCrunch" - https://techcrunch.com/2018/05/27/jeff-bezos-details-his-moon-colony-ambitions/
  10. "Engadget" - https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/27/jeff-bezos-outlines-blue-origin-space-colony-ambitions/
  11. "Dear Jeff Bezos: Forget About The Stupid Moon" - http://archive.is/uawGn
  12. "Jeff Bezos' Vision for Space: One Trillion Population in the Solar System" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/07/17/0235257
  13. "ESA Expert Envisions "Moon Village" by 2030-2050" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/09/25/2332222
  14. "How to Get Back to the Moon in 4 Years, Permanently" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=17/02/27/1631233
  15. "Bigelow Aerospace Forms New Company to Manage Space Stations, Announces Gigantic Inflatable Module" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/02/21/0341241
  16. "Blue Origin to Compete to Launch U.S. Military Payloads" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/04/14/1656241
  17. "2020s to Become the Decade of Lunar Re-Exploration" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/04/20/1442238
  18. "Blue Origin Conducts its First Successful Suborbital Test Flight and Landing of 2018" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/04/30/1645251
  19. "Lunar Regolith Simulants Damage Cells" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/07/2123216
  20. "NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine Serious About Returning to the Moon" - https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=18/05/10/0248227
  21. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=26927

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