Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos says ‘We must go to space to protect Earth’

Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos said last week that humans must go to space to protect Earth. Bezos’ latest comment came at the Lake Nona Impact Forum alongside NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

NASA and Blue Origin are working together to send humans back to the moon with its Artemis V mission. This is a big contract for Blue Origin to achieve a major milestone in space launch services.

Blue Origin will design, develop, test, and verify its moon lander called “Blue Moon” to host astronauts and develop a system to send humans to the lunar surface. The new tech development includes docking with Gateway and a space station to transfer astronauts in lunar orbit.

Image Credit: Blue Origin

This $3.4 billion contract for Blue Origin covers an uncrewed mission to the moon before launching a human flight in 2029.

NASA first selected SpaceX as a primary launch service provider with a contract of $2.89 billion for the Artemis IV mission. This Elon Musk led firm will use its mega-rocket Starship which is currently under testing.

Bezos’ space rocket company has developed a New Glenn launch vehicle which will take heavy payload to space. The company has been conducting tests and running statics before a demonstration flight this year.

“I wanna take the financial winnings that I got from starting Amazon and I want to take that and use it to build heavy infrastructure for space. So that the next generation of entrepreneurs can do what I did with Amazon.” Bezos added.

Artemis V:

NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket will launch with four astronauts to lunar orbit inside Orion spacecraft.

The spacecraft will dock with Gateway and two astronauts will transfer to Blue Origin’s human landing system for about a week before landing to Moon’s South Pole to conduct exploration and scientific studies.

(source – Blue Origin)