Why it matters to you
It’s been awhile since humans have gone to the moon, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos has plans for how we’re going to get there.
No one will ever be able to accuse Jeff Bezos of lacking vision. If the Amazon CEO is anything at all, it’s ambitious. Want proof? His latest endeavor aims to take two of his companies to the moon.
According to a new report from the Washington Post, Bezos and his space company, Blue Origin, has been passing around a white paper that “urges [NASA] to back an Amazon-like shipment service for the moon.” Such a service would bring experiment-related gear, cargo, and humans to the moon by the middle of the next decade, allowing for the “future human settlement” of our natural satellite.
More: Meet Moondrop: A gravity-defying fidget toy that leverages a fascinating quirk of physics
“It is time for America to return to the moon — this time to stay,” Bezos said in an email interview with The Post. “A permanently inhabited lunar settlement is a difficult and worthy objective. I sense a lot of people are excited about this.”
The proposal from January 4 is centered around cargo missions, which will help ultimately establish the aforementioned lunar settlement. And it’s really not outside the realm of possibility. NASA has already demonstrated its openness to working with commercial companies — after all, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been awarded many a contract to fly off into space, most recently to Mars.
And Bezos is seizing upon that opportunity, it would seem. During Thursday’s Aviation Week awards ceremony, Bezos noted, “I think that if you go to the moon first, and make the moon your home, then you can get to Mars more easily.”
The executive said that Blue Origin could be headed to the moon as soon as in July of 2020, but such a mission could “only be done in partnership with NASA. Our liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission. I’m excited about this and am ready to invest my own money alongside NASA to make it happen.”
“Blue Moon is all about cost-effective delivery of mass to the surface of the Moon,” Bezos wrote. “Any credible first lunar settlement will require that capability.”