Amazon boss Jeff Bezos unveiled a new BE-7 rocket engine for landing on the moon. On Thursday, 9th May 2019 he revealed a “Blue Moon” moon lander through his aerospace manufacturing company, Blue Origin.
Bezos told media and space industry executives in an invite-only presentation that they made a vehicle that was going to the moon. He said that the moon is a good place to begin manufacturing in space because of its lower gravity than Earth. He added that it takes 24 times less energy to get resources from the moon off the surface compared to Earth.
According to Bezos, the Blue Moon lander can bring 3.6 metric tons to the moon surface. He also unveiled the company’s BE-7 rocket engine. The engine will be tested for the first time later in 2019.
The Blue Moon lunar lander comes loaded with enough fuel to get from the earth to the moon. It can deploy up to four self-driving rovers and launch satellites to orbit the moon. It will weigh about 14,500 kg when it’s loaded with fuel and jetting off from Earth. This weight will decrease to about 3,175 kg when it is about to land on the Moon.
Jeff Bezos goes blue
The Blue Moon is set to land on the south pole of the Moon. This is where ice deposits are found. The water from the ice can be broken down to produce hydrogen that can fuel up the spacecraft to go on a further journey through the solar system.
America’s vice president Mike Pence once announced that they intended to return United States astronauts to the Moon by the end of 2024. Bezos confirmed that his company, Blue Origin, could meet the deadline. “I love Vice President Pence’s 2024 lunar landing goal because we started this three years ago,” he said.
Bezos believes that, in the future, people will be able to live and work in space. This is the vision he has with this new plan to improve access to the Moon. He explained, “The price of admission to do interesting things in space right now is just too high because there’s no infrastructure.”
Blue Origin, which began space operation about twenty years ago, has started a New Shepard rocket system. It is developing this to enable it to send tourists to the edge of space for 10 minutes. The New Shepard has flown on 11 flights and is able to carry six passengers.
Blue balls?
Meanwhile, Elon Musk has made some crude comments about the new spacecraft. He posted an altered picture of Blue Moon and, instead of having “Blue Moon” on the side, the image had “Blue Balls.”
Oh stop teasing, Jeff 😉 pic.twitter.com/wuWPENcSE1
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 10, 2019
Musk is the founder of the rival space firm, SpaceX, and is known for his savage tweets. This is not the first time he will be trolling Bezos.
In April 2019, Amazon announced plans to launch more than 3,000 satellites to provide internet to underserved communities. Musk went on to call Bezos a copycat in a tweet because of it. This was because, in 2018, SpaceX announced plans to launch its own internet satellites.