Jeff Bezos’ space company Blue Origin will send the first woman to the moon, the billionaire announced as NASA concludes about who will supply its first privately built lunar landers, with the capacity to send astronauts to the moon by 2024.
“This is the engine that will take the first woman to the surface of the moon,” Bezos said on an Instagram post with a video of a BE-7 engine test at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.
Twelve men have walked on the Moon; but no women. NASA aims to change that, administrator Jim Bridenstine said.
“In the 1960s, young ladies didn’t have the opportunity to see themselves in that role,” Bridenstine said. “Today they do, and I think this is a very exciting opportunity.”
Also Read:
– Jeff Bezos Adds $13 Billion To His Net Worth In A Single Day
– Jeff Bezos Replies Angry Customers Email Saying Black Lives Mater
– Top Tech Trends Of The Week: Zoom, Jeff Bezos, US New Sanctions On Huawei And More
The Blue Origin engine has tallied 1,245 seconds of test-fire time. It is meant to power the company’s National Team Human Landing System lunar lander.
Bezos’s company has vied for lucrative government contracts. In the race to build NASA’s system to ferry humans to the moon in the next decade, it is competing with rival billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Dynetics.
In April, NASA awarded the Blue Origin team a lunar lander development contract worth $579m. SpaceX received $135m to help develop its Starship system. Dynetics received $253m. NASA has said it will pick two companies “in early March” 2021, to continue building lander prototypes for crewed missions beginning in 2024.
Slim funds for the landing systems made available to NASA by Congress; as well as uncertainty over the incoming Biden administration’s views on space exploration, have threatened to delay the decision.
For your daily dose of tech, lifestyle, and trending content, make sure to follow Plat4om on Twitter @Plat4omLive, on Instagram @Plat4om, on LinkedIn at Plat4om, and on Facebook at Plat4om. You can also email us at info@plat4om.com and join our channel on Telegram at Plat4om. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE.