Moondust in the Wind
Blue Origin—the space-launch subsidiary of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos’s business empire—has been awarded a $35-million NASA Tipping Point partnership by dint of which the Kent, Washington-based aerospace concern will further the development of its Blue Alchemist initiative. Announced in February 2023, Blue Origin’s Blue Alchemist is a nascent, end-to-end, scalable, autonomous solution by which solar-cells are produced from silicates derived of lunar regolith—which is to say, the fine dust and crushed rock with which the moon’s surface is replete.