Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos says he is going to send a spaceship to the Moon.
Bezos, the world's richest man, said his space company Blue Origin will land an unmanned robotic ship. Known as Blue Moon, the lunar lander is the size of a house and capable of carrying four rovers. It uses a newly designed rocket engine.
Speaking in Washington DC to an audience consisting of potential customers and officials from Nasa, he said he hopes his plans could help return American astronauts to the Moon by 2024.
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The New York Times described a “carefully choreographed event akin to an announcement of a new iPhone,” while the Daily Telegraph put the event in a wider context, pointing out that “the 55-year-old has spoken of his desire to colonise space”. The Guardian says “the tech billionaires’ space race is heating up”.
“It's time to go back to the Moon, this time to stay,” said Bezos. “We are going to build a road to space. And then amazing things will happen.”
US Vice President Mike Pence earlier this year directed Nasa to return American astronauts to the surface of the Moon within the next five years. “I love Vice President Pence's 2024 lunar landing goal,” Bezos said, adding that his company can meet that timeline “because we started this three years ago”.
There is little love lost between Bezos and the White House administration. He has been the subject of repeated criticism from President Donald Trump, who refers to him as Jeff “Bozo”. Trump has often described the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, as “fake news”.
Sky News points out that Bezos’ vision is “shared by other billionaire-backed private space ventures including Elon Musk's SpaceX and aerospace incumbents such as United Launch Alliance, a partnership between Boeing Co and Lockheed Martin”.
Bezos forecast in February that the solar system could support a population of one trillion humans. “Then we'd have 1,000 Mozarts, and 1,000 Einsteins. Think how incredible and dynamic that civilization will be,” he said.
