Bezos Unveils Bold Plans for Manned Spaceflight, as well as a "Blue Lander"

On Thursday, the founder of Blue Origin and owner of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, unveiled the Blue Moon Lander, a spacecraft capable of carrying up to 6.5 tonnes of cargo – and possibly even more. 39, crew – on the lunar surface. The announcement was made at a press conference in Washington, DC. Along with Blue Moon, he unveiled his new BE-7 rocket for the LG, which he says has been in development for three years. If all goes as planned, the company will test the rocket for the first time this summer. Together, Bezos sees these developments as a way to bring humans back to the surface of the moon, "this time, to stay."

The White House is committed to doing just that, bringing humans back to the lunar surface by 2024, and Bezos says his lander is a way to achieve that goal.

This is a bold assertion for a spaceship company that has only reached the edge of space – and which has never been fully orbited. But the company claims to be about to do the history of spaceflight. The more familiar vessel of Blue Origin, the New Shepherd, is designed to take humans in suborbital flight. Bezos had already announced a crew launch of the rocket in 2019, and on Thursday he re-committed to doing so this summer.

Nice definitive statement here.

"We're going to fly humans to New Shepard this year, it's incredibly exciting."

– Eric Berger (@SciGuySpace) May 9, 2019

While New Shepherd has been testing for years, it would be an impressive feat in light of SpaceX and Boeing's recent claims and setbacks.

However, SpaceX and Boeing have been transporting cargo to the International Space Station several times, while Blue Origin has not planned to go into Earth orbit until 2021. That's when they plan to launch the new rocket. Glenn two-stage first stage reusable. Finally, this craft could carry both the crew and the cargo – largely – in space. But this first flight is still in a few years.

To go even further in humans, Bezos presented a version of the Blue Moon Lander that can carry a crew capsule.

Bezos also shared his long-term, comprehensive vision of space and lunar exploration during today's event, including the O'Neill cylinders, a popular idea for space dwellers. These would be autonomous space stations supplemented by gravity, thanks to the effects of rotation.

If this year sees both a new BE-7 fire test and a successful New Shepherd crew flight, then Blue Origin will be well on its way to the next, very important stage of manned spaceflight.