{"id":18816,"date":"2017-09-07T22:22:02","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:22:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-makes-its-pitch-to-congress-for-delivering-cargo-to-the-moon\/"},"modified":"2017-09-07T22:22:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T14:22:02","slug":"jeff-bezos-blue-origin-makes-its-pitch-to-congress-for-delivering-cargo-to-the-moon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-makes-its-pitch-to-congress-for-delivering-cargo-to-the-moon\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos\u2019 Blue Origin makes its pitch to Congress for delivering cargo to the moon"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_360978\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-360978\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-360978\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170908-blue-moon-630x362.jpg\" alt=\"Blue Moon lander\" width=\"630\" height=\"362\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170908-blue-moon-630x362.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170908-blue-moon-768x442.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170908-blue-moon-1260x725.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/170908-blue-moon.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-360978\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s concept shows the Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, joined other companies today in laying out plans for commercial missions to the moon during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s time for America to return to the moon, this time to stay,\u201d Brett Alexander, Blue Origin\u2019s director of business development and strategy, told members of the House Subcommittee on Space. That declaration echoed Bezos\u2019 oft-used phrase, virtually word for word.<\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin has already been testing a suborbital space vehicle called New Shepard, with an eye toward taking on passengers as early as next year. It\u2019s also developing a more powerful orbital-class rocket called New Glenn, which could be used as part of a lunar mission architecture known as Blue Moon.<\/p>\n<p>Today Alexander said the Blue Moon lunar lander would be optimized to fly on NASA\u2019s Space Launch System, a heavy-lift rocket that\u2019s due for its first test flight in 2019. When paired with the SLS, Blue Moon could deliver more than 5 tons of cargo to the lunar surface. Smaller payloads could be delivered using New Glenn or other rockets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust pick the launch vehicle and go,\u201d Alexander said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Jeff Bezos lays out a plan for settling the moon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YDcYdR0Sav8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Alexander said that the lander would use a version of Blue Origin\u2019s hydrogen-fueled BE-3 engine that\u2019s optimized for in-space operation, and that Blue Origin has already made \u201csignificant investments\u201d in the technologies needed for the Blue Moon program.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs part of a public-private partnership with NASA, we are willing to invest further in developing this capability,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>As templates for such collaboration, Alexander pointed to NASA\u2019s commercial cargo program for resupplying the International Space Station, as well as the NextSTEP program for space habitat development. To accelerate the push to the moon, Alexander urged Congress to streamline the licensing process for space vehicles and set up a timeline for lunar surface missions in the mid- to late 2020s.<\/p>\n<p>Jason Crusan, NASA\u2019s director for advanced exploration systems, told lawmakers that his agency is already pursuing public-private partnerships for moon exploration through its Lunar CATALYST program&nbsp;\u2013 and that more ambitious projects could be in the works.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe agency is currently assessing possible robotic mission concepts, acquisition approaches and associated payloads for a potential series of lunar cargo missions to the surface of the moon starting as early as 2018,\u201d Crusan said.<\/p>\n<p>In May, NASA issued a request for information about future commercial missions to the moon, with an eye toward scientific studies ranging from geological surveys to technology development to sample return. Blue Origin is almost certainly among the interested parties.<\/p>\n<p>Two of the companies currently benefiting from Lunar CATALYST sent executives to today\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n<p>Bob Richards, co-founder and CEO of Moon Express, said his company was on track to send its first lander to the lunar surface early next year. If that mission is successful, Moon Express could win a share of the $30 million Google Lunar XPRIZE for privately backed lunar missions. Two more missions are due to follow in 2019 and 2020.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen we started Moon Express, we were looking at missions that might cost $100 million or more to get to the moon,\u201d Richards said. \u201cWith the combination of the current technology and the low-cost vehicles that are coming on the market, we can do initial precursor missions for under $10 million of our cost.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Astrobotic Technology CEO John Thornton told the lawmakers that his company\u2019s Peregrine lander would be ready for trips to the moon by 2019, which will mark the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom the get-go, we are market-focused,\u201d Thornton said. \u201cWe say, \u2018OK, what\u2019s the market out there for payloads, what size is necessary, and then we design a lander and scale that\u2019s appropriate for that.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He said Astrobotic determined that a payload capacity of 265 kilograms (584 pounds) would cover most of the existing market for lunar deliveries \u2013 so that\u2019s what Peregrine is designed to carry.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Chairman Babin's Opening Statement on &quot;Private Sector Lunar Exploration&quot;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/DFUp9pjeRf0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>George Sowers, an expert on space resources at the Colorado School of Mines said water ice deposits of the moon could be converted into hydrogen and oxygen, \u201cthe most efficient chemical propellants known.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWater is the oil of space,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The moon\u2019s rocks and soil could also be converted into building materials and helium-3 fuel for future fusion power plants, Sowers said.<\/p>\n<p>Questions from lawmakers focused on whether commercial lunar activities would interfere with scientific missions (the witnesses said those aims were complementary); whether Apollo landing sites would be disturbed (Thornton said they\u2019d be preserved as memorials); and whether missions to the moon would hurt prospects for Mars missions (Richards said \u201cthe moon is not an off-ramp to Mars, it\u2019s an on-ramp to Mars\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>Subcommittee Chairman Brian Babin, R-Texas, emphasized that NASA shouldn\u2019t \u201cleave our nation\u2019s space exploration future purely to the whims of market uncertainties, and we should not bet our nation\u2019s future in space on any one company.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But he said there was a chance that commercial space ventures could lead the way to future economic growth, just as companies such as Microsoft and Amazon have led the way in information technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe cannot compel such an ambitious outcome, but by careful and thoughtful consideration we can, hopefully and humbly, enable it,\u201d Babin said. \u201cAt the very least, we should not stifle it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s concept shows the Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration) Blue Origin, the space venture founded by Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, joined other companies today in laying out plans for commercial missions to the moon during a congressional hearing on Capitol Hill. \u201cIt\u2019s time for America to return to the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1508,509,291,625,2910,4467],"class_list":["post-18816","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-blue-moon","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-moon","tag-moon-express","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}