Blue Origin and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on Monday offered to cover billions of dollars in costs if NASA gives his space tourism company its second contract for the Human Landing System program. The first contract, which aims to send the first astronauts to the moon since the end of the Apollo mission, was entrusted to Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Jeff Bezos offers $ 2 billion for NASA’s Human Landing System
“We are convinced that, in order to advance America’s future in space, NASA must now quickly and decisively return to the Moon – wrote Bezos in his open letter. to NASA administrator Bill Nelson “All NASA has to do is take advantage of this offer.”
Bezos said Blue Orgin will contribute a whopping $ 2 billion in the first few years, as well as paying for a demonstration mission. should NASA decide to give the company the exclusivity on the second Human Landing System program, such as the one signed by SpaceX in April to design and carry out a manned lunar landing.
In his proposal, Bezos explained that Blue Origin will cover all program costs in both the current and next fiscal years, up to $ 2 billion. The letter is the latest offer to persuade NASA to award a second HLS contract, something the space agency had originally planned. However, NASA announced in April that it would award the contract to SpaceX due to budget constraints.
In short, Bezos does not seem to have really gone down the fact that he lost the exclusive on the first human landing on the Moon since the Apollo mission and he seems willing not to be cut off from the space race. We are sure that NASA’s response will not be long in coming.