Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in an open letter addressed the leadership of NASA with a proposal to allocate $2 billion to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in exchange for the participation of his space company Blue Origin in the preparation of missions to the Moon.
In particular, it is assumed that a contract will be signed with Bezos ' company and it will develop a lander for the Artemis lunar program. If NASA agrees to such conditions, Blue Origin will refuse to pay under the contract in the amount of up to $2 billion this fiscal year and in the next two years.
"This proposal is not a postponement, but a complete rejection of these requirements," the letter says.
In addition, as Bezos noted, Blue Origin will independently finance the development and launch into low-Earth orbit of an element for landing on the Moon. In return, the company offers NASA to conclude a fixed-price contract for this work and cover any cost overruns for the development of the system from its budget, and Blue Origin also undertakes to protect NASA from problems with the growth of partner costs.
In April, Elon Musk's SpaceX was announced the winner of the NASA competition for the development of a system for landing a person on the surface of the Moon, the contract amount was $2.89 billion. Blue Origin also participated in the competition and, after losing, filed a complaint against the management's decision.
Earlier, on July 20, Jeff Bezos made a successful suborbital flight. He posted a video from the capsule while in space on Instagram. Bezos also noted that his company Blue Origin will carry out two more manned flights in 2021.
The New Shepard ship was launched from the Blue Origin launch pad in Van Horn in the US state of Texas. Five minutes after the launch, the capsule with people separated from the launch vehicle and continued to climb higher. The capsule was located at an altitude of about 106 km above the Earth, rising above the conditional boundary between the Earth's atmosphere and space-on the so-called Pocket line. After that, Bezos and his brother Mark, 82-year-old pilot Wally Funk and 18-year-old Oliver Damen spent a few minutes in weightlessness. The flight duration was about 11 minutes.
On July 11, it was reported that Jeff Bezos congratulated the British billionaire and owner of Virgin Galactic Richard Branson on a successful flight to the edge of space.
The spacecraft was launched from the spaceport in the state of New Mexico. The Eve carrier plane lifted it to an altitude of about 15 km. Then the rocket plane disconnected from the carrier and started its own engine, rising to an altitude of more than 80 km. The crew was able to experience a state of weightlessness for a few minutes. After that, the device began to descend and made a successful landing at the spaceport.
It was noted that this is the first launch of the company's ship with a full crew in history.
