Jeff Bezos’s space company will build a moon lander for Nasa. What’s interesting about this is not that Nasa is outsourcing a critical component of its next moon mission to a private company that so far has barely reached earth orbit, but that it has done so before – and that tendering process was fraught. The contract went to SpaceX, which so frustrated Bezos’s Blue Origin that it sued the US government. Then, last month, SpaceX’s Starship blew up shortly after takeoff. There was nothing in Friday’s announcements from Nasa Blue Origin to suggest they were connected to the SpaceX failure, but it’s hard to imagine they’re not. Nasa wants to put humans back on the moon by 2025. It’s paying Blue Origin $3.5 billion and Blue Origin is putting in a similar amount.
Artists impression Blue Origin