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Amazon tycoon Jeff Bezos announced on Thursday that he would send a spacecraft to the moon, joining a renewed interest in the moon half a century after people first set foot on it.
Bezos said his space company Blue Origin would land a robotic vessel the size of a small house, capable of carrying four rovers and using a newly designed rocket engine and inflated rockets. It would be followed by a version that could bring people to the moon the same time as NASA's proposed return for 2024.
Bezos, who was downplayed by his model of the Blue Moon vehicle during his presentation Thursday, said: "It's an incredible vehicle and it's going on the moon."
He added, "It's time to return to the moon, this time, stay."
The announcement made by the space company, usually secret, was accompanied by all the pomp of an Apple product launch in an obscure ballroom darkened with twinkling stars on its walls. Astronauts and other space lights sat in the audience in blue light before Bezos unveiled the square ship with four long, thin landing legs.
Bezos, who is also the owner of the Washington Post, has left the scene without providing details, including on launch dates, customers and the human use plan on his rockets. He spent more time talking about his dream of future generations living on colonies of space stations in orbit than concrete details about the missions of Blue Origin.
Blue Origin officials gave contradictory answers to questions about when the company would land on the moon with and without people. Blue Origin Vice President Clay Mowry said that 2024 was not a concrete goal for a mission with people and that it belonged more to NASA as a potential customer.
Former US representative Robert Walker, a private space consultant working with Blue Origin, said he was planning a launch in 2023 without people.
In 2017, Blue Origin announced its intention to send a reusable, unmanned rocket to the Moon capable of carrying 10,000 pounds of payload. The company had a successful launch earlier this month, reusing for the fifth time one of its New Shepherd rockets, which barely reaches the space.
The new lunar race has a lower profile than the 1960s. It involves private companies, new countries and a NASA mission to return astronauts to the lunar surface by 2024.
While a $ 30 million price intended for private companies for sending robotic probes to the moon had not been claimed last year, one of the competitors, from a private Israeli nonprofit organization, crashed last month while he was trying to land.
China has landed a rover on the far side of the moon. Last year, SpaceX had announced its intention to send a Japanese businessman around the moon in 2023. And an Israeli non-profit organization said it would give him a second chance.
The Soviet Union made its first landing on the moon in 1966 with Luna 9, followed by the United States four months later. NASA placed the first and only people on the moon in the Apollo program, starting with Apollo 11 in July 1969.
"The next jump in space will be fueled by commercial companies such as Blue Origin and commercial innovation," said Phil Larson, former Obama space advisor to the White House, which is now Dean of Engineering at the University of Colorado.
Space companies have made great announcements in the past with goals that have never been realized.
Former NASA Assistant Administrator, Dava Newman, MIT professor and Blue Origin customer, said this time it was different. The new engine is the reason, she says, "it's for real".
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