Elon Musk: Newt Gingrich's $ 2 billion moon prize is a "good idea"

Large sums of money can give rise to great innovations. Imagine that the US government is earning $ 2 billion for a private company to install a moon base on the moon. The founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk, is with that.

Former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich, encourages the idea of ​​holding a draw to encourage companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin by Jeff Bezos to face the daunting task to bring humans back to the moon for much less than it would cost NASA, Politico said. On Monday. Gingrich apparently tries to convince President Donald Trump to support this initiative.

Musk is on board.

"It's a good idea," Musk tweeted.

Gingrich responded to Musk on Tuesday by tweeting, "Very cool, thanks, Elon Musk!"

NASA is facing an extremely difficult deadline, imposed by Trump in 2024, for his mission Artemis takes the next man and the first woman on the moon. The mission should cost between $ 20 billion and $ 30 billion. Delays have already been recorded. Space Launch System rocket development.

SpaceX, however, is advancing by leaps and bounds in building its next-generation spaceship, which is intended to handle missions in Earth orbit, the moon and finally Mars. The company assembles two different orbital prototypes.

If Gingrich's idea materializes, this is not the first time the prize money has been suspended for a moon landing. Google Lunar XPrize, worth $ 30 million, destined for a landing mission on the unprepared moon finally went unclaimed by 2018. It always had the effect of pushing innovation. Former XPrize team SpaceIL almost landed on the moon early 2019. (He crushed instead of.)

SpaceX and Blue Origin already have their eyes on the missions of the moon and have signed with NASA to study prototypes of lunar landers. A $ 2 billion government carrot would not hurt.