NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency plans to involve Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, one of Elon Musk’s biggest competitors to SpaceX, in a mission to the moon.
NASA Acting Administrator Sean Duffy said the space agency plans to involve Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, one of Elon Musk’s biggest competitors to SpaceX, in a mission to the moon.
This is reported by Futurism with reference to Reuters.
«I’m currently working on this contract. I think companies like Blue and maybe others will join this project. We’re going to see a space race between American companies competing to see who can get us back to the moon first,» Duffy said.
The decision may be due to NASA’s concerns about the delay in the development of the Starship spacecraft. The rocket has suffered setbacks over the past few years, raising concerns among NASA officials that the Human Landing Systems version may not be ready to deliver astronauts from lunar orbit to the surface as early as 2027 as part of the Artemis 3 mission.
At the same time, US President Donald Trump does not want to lag behind China, which is currently aiming to reach the Moon by 2030. Experts have previously warned that SpaceX could put the space agency in a situation of permanent delay, which could lead to China overtaking the US in reaching the Moon’s surface.
Duffy pointedly pointed to SpaceX, saying that «they’re behind schedule,» and adding that «the president wants to make sure we get ahead of the Chinese.»
Meanwhile, Bezos' company Blue Origin is working on a lunar lander called Blue Moon, which is currently designed to carry a crew of four astronauts as part of NASA’s Artemis 5 mission, scheduled for 2030.
Elon Musk’s company recently conducted two more Falcon 9 missions and launched a total of 10,000 Starlink launches, bringing the number of rocket launches in 2025 to 132: equal to last year’s maximum.
