In an open letter, Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos offered NASA billions of dollars to give his space tourism company a second Human Landing System contract.
Flying to the near reaches of space wasn’t enough for the richest person in the world. In an open letter published today, Amazon founder and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos offered NASA billions of dollars to give his space tourism company a Human Landing System (HLS) contract. “Blue Origin is committed to building a future where millions of people live and work in space to benefit the Earth,” the letter addressed to NASA’s Administrator Bill Nelson reads. “We are convinced that, to advance America’s future in space, NASA must now quickly and assuredly return to the Moon.” It’s yet another sign that Jeff Bezos is unhappy about his space company playing second fiddle to SpaceX. And now, Bezos is willing to throw his weight — and incredible amounts of wealth — behind his space company’s efforts. NASA’s Human Landing System program is core to the agency’s collaboration with private space industry companies to get the first astronauts to the Moon as soon as 2024. Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Alabama-based company Dynetics were all vying for the coveted spot to become the developer of the spacecraft to make that happen. In a controversial decision in April, however, NASA announced that it had selected SpaceX — and SpaceX only — to develop the human lander, a variant of the company’s Starship spacecraft. The decision was immediately contested by both Blue Origin and Dynetics, which led to the entire $2.
