Blue Origin is going to the Moon and Beyond

On May 9th, 2019, Jeff Bezos announced the Blue Origin plans to go to the Moon. They have been working on a new lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon, at an event hosted in Washington DC. The first version will carry 3.5 tons of cargo to the lunar surface. The second will carry 6.5 tons and will be used for the second stage rocket to return to orbit around the moon or to NASA's Gateway station. Bezos' vision goes beyond just the Moon though.

Bezos, in his talk above, discussed the idea of founded O'Neil habitats. These are giant rotating cylindrical space stations. Their intent was to be placed at the LaGrange points, spots of stability between the Earth and Moon. This makes it easy for the station to maintain its orbit and minimize the use of fuel.

Bezos' grand vision is to move as much of industry off of Earth to preserve the environment. The planet would become a garden world and all the dirty nasty stuff would take place off world. It's a beautiful vision, but we are a looooong way from there.

While exciting and Bezos is one of the richest men on the planet, Blue Origin has yet to fly a rocket into orbit. Their New Shepard rocket tests have been successful, but still suborbital. Their current plan is to have the first suborbital launches with people onboard this year. However, there's a huge leap from suborbital flight to actually reaching orbit: orbit is speed plus location, not just location. Otherwise, anything that reaches that altitude will fall back to Earth.

Time will tell, but the Silicon Valley Space Race continues. Bezos focused on the Moon and near Earth space. Musk on Mars.

More info:

http://www.parabolicarc.com/2019/05/09/bezos-reunveils-blue-moon-be7-engine/
http://www.parabolicarc.com/2019/05/10/watch-jeff-bezos-describe-blue-moon-lander-plans-floating-space-colonies/
https://www.wired.com/story/jeff-bezos-unveils-blue-origins-prototype-of-a-lunar-lander
https://www.thedrive.com/news/27929/jeff-bezos-blue-origin-space-venture-unveils-lunar-lander-rover-and-rocket
https://spacenews.com/blue-origin-unveils-lunar-lander/
https://www.engadget.com/2019/05/09/blue-origin-blue-moon-lunar-lander/
https://newatlas.com/blue-moon-unveil/59626/