Billionaire former Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos wants to reach higher heights. He recently went into space through his own space company Blue Origin. Now, the businessman wants a contract with the American space agency, NASA. The goal is to be allowed to take people to the moon.
NASA has a contract with SpaceX, the company of another rich guy (Elon Musk), but it is suspended. In an open letter published by Jeff Bezos, the offer for the proposal is billionaire.
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“We are convinced that to advance America's future in space, NASA needs to quickly secure a return to the Moon. All the agency needs to do is take advantage of this offer.” That's what Bezos says through the document intended for NASA administrator, Bill Nelson.
The value of the proposal made by the owner of Blue Origin is US$ 2 billion, something around R$ 10.3 billion. The amount refers to the operating costs of the first two years of production of a lunar probe.
Bezos claims that the amount will be paid in full to NASA in the first two years as well. Another advantage offered to the American agency was a fixed price contract. Thus, there would be no problem in extrapolating the spending ceiling in specific cases.
Part of Bezos' proposal is an exploration mission for discoveries on lunar soil. "Unlike Apollo, our approach is designed to be sustainable and grow into permanent and affordable lunar operations."
The businessman says that the Blue Origin prototype uses liquid hydrogen as fuel. Therefore, it "will be essential for future operations" on the satellite, as the element could be extracted from the Moon.
The proposal to take astronauts to the Moon had already been made by Elon Musk. Creator of Tesla and the space company SpaceX, Musk even signed a contract with NASA. The proposal accepted in April 2021 was US$ 2.89 billion, more expensive than Bezos', therefore.
However, competing companies (including Blue Origin) contested the contract with NASA. Therefore, the partnership was suspended and now a new proposal (by Bezos) has been made, this time cheaper.
“Rather than a single-source approach, NASA should embrace its original competition strategy. Competition will prevent any single source from having insurmountable influence over NASA. Without competition, NASA will find itself with limited options as it tries to negotiate missed deadlines, design changes and cost overruns. Without competition, the agency's short- and long-term lunar ambitions will cost more and not serve the national interest,” Bezos said.
On the other hand, the American agency established 10-month contracts with three companies. SpaceX, Blue Origin and Dynetics need to build lunar module concepts in this period. Once ready, NASA will choose which of the options is more efficient.
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