Amazon's Bezos aims to send rocket to the moon by 2024
Billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has unveiled plans to send a rocket to the moon by 2024.
The world's richest man said his aerospace company Blue Origin is developing rockets for short space tourism trips and satellite launch contracts.
The Blue Moon lander, which has been in development for three years, can carry up to 6.5 metric tons for deposit on the moon, allowing it to lay the framework for future human missions.
Speaking of vice-president Mike Pence’s request for Nasa to build a space platform in lunar orbit and place American astronauts there by 2024 Bezos said: “I love this. We can help meet that timeline but only because we started three years ago. It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay.”
In addition to announcing the moon lander, Bezos said his aim is also to create floating spacecraft for human colonies in the future that would rotate to simulate gravity and be able to sustain human and plant life.
“Imagine Maui, on its best day, every day,” he said, using the Hawaiian island to describe the climatic conditions he expected humans to create in the colonies. “Imagine what architecture would be like if it did not have to fulfil its primary purpose of shelter.”
Bezos created Blue Origin in 2000 and announced he would sell $1bn of his stock in Amazon every year to help fund the company.
Since then, the company has built New Shepard, a reusable rocket intended to take tourists to the edge of space which has its first manned flight planned for the end of this year.
The news reveals that a billionaire race to space has officially begun as Elon Musk also develops plans to bring humans to Mars with his company SpaceX. Musk previously set the first cargo-carrying Mars mission for 2022 and a crewed mission for 2024.