Not content with strides to take over measly planet Earth with drones, staffless supermarkets and AI personal assistants, Amazon owner Jeff Bezos has set his shipping sights on the Moon.
Because at some point we’re going to fuck this place up so much we’re probably going to need to Prime to space to survive.
The shipping magnate is upping the competition with fellow billionaire Elon Musk, who plans on colonising Mars. Musk announced last week that he’s planning on launching two space tourists on a journey around the moon as early as 2018.
This week, The Washington Post(conveniently owned by Bezos) revealed that his space company, Blue Origin, has been circulating a proposal to launch a cargo spacecraft to shuttle goods – and eventually, humans – to and from the Moon, with uncrewed missions beginning as early as July 2020.
The seven-page white paper circulating was sent to NASA leadership and the Trump transition team, urging them to create an initiative that gives “incentives to the private sector to demonstrate a commercial lunar cargo delivery service.”
Bezos wrote that the only way his project can work is with NASA’s expertise and assistance: “Our liquid hydrogen expertise and experience with precision vertical landing offer the fastest path to a lunar lander mission. I’m excited about this and am ready to invest my own money alongside NASA to make it happen.”
The general gist is to attach a lunar lander to one of either NASA’s, United Launch Alliance’s or Blue Origin’s rockets to the Moon’s South Pole. After dropping it off there, the lander should be able to use solar radiation to function.
“Once on the surface, the lander’s useful payload can be used to conduct science or deploy rovers,” Bezos said.
“A robotic arm attached to the lander will deploy to examine the lunar surface with an array of instruments.”
It’s all part of Bezos’ master plan to create a “permanently inhabited lunar settlement”, and he believes that delivering supplies to the Moon would be the first step toward that eventual goal.
Given that one day on the Moon is 28 days on Earth, you may as well splurge on next day delivery, which would seem like a bargain up there.
