Proposes 'Amazon-Like' Delivery System For Possible Permanent Lunar Human Presence

Jeff Bezos is thinking way beyond suborbital flights by his space company Blue Origin. In a white paper outlined in a report in the Bezos-owned Washington Post, the Internet billionaire has proposed sending a robotic lander to the south polar region of the Moon by 2020, which could lead to "Amazon-like" delivery of supplies to a future lunar human colony.

The seven-page white paper, which was dated January 4, has been making the rounds in Washington, including at NASA and with the new Trump administration. In the paper, Blue Origin describes the development of a lunar spacecraft and lander that would travel to the Moon's south pole, where there is almost continuous sunlight for the generation of solar energy.

The paper calls on NASA to get behind the idea of an "Amazon-like" delivery service to make human colonization of the moon a reality.

In an emailed response to questions from the paper, Bezos said "It is time for America to return to the Moon, this time to stay." He called a permanently inhabited moon base a "difficult and worthy objective."

One of Bezos' rivals in the commercial space business, Elon Musk, recently made headlines with an announcement that he plans to send two paying private space tourists on a to-the-moon-and-back mission next year, which would come before NASA can launch its first Orion capsule to the Moon. NASA has said that it is looking at the feasibility of making that first launch a manned mission.

So it would seem that the space race to the moon is back on ... but this time the competition is all local.

(Image from file)

FMI: www.blueorigin.com. WaPo article