![]() ![]() Although NASA first discovered traces of ice in the lunar regolith over a decade ago, the form this ice is in is an open question-it could exist as sheets, as casing around lunar regolith, or as small grains mixed in with the dust. Perhaps the biggest question involves the nature of the water ice at the poles. So far, the company hasn’t done a single test flight with its BE-4 engine, but today Bezos said New Glenn would fly for the first time in 2021.Įven if Blue Origin nails all these technical developments on time, there are still a lot of uncertainties about the lunar south pole that need to be resolved prior to establishing a lunar base. In addition to boosting humans and satellites into orbit, a three-stage version of New Glenn will also be responsible for delivering payloads to the moon. Once it is completed, the rocket will be the largest in operation and capable of generating 3.85 million pounds of thrust, which dwarfs the 100,000 pounds put out by the New Shepard. To meet this challenge, the company is developing a two-stage rocket, the New Glenn, which will be powered by seven BE-4 engines. The New Shepard rocket reaches a maximum speed of about 2,200 miles per hour, but to place a payload in orbit Blue Origin will need a rocket that can boost itself to 17,500 miles per hour. The next step would be to send humans into orbit, which puts significantly more stress on a rocket and also requires a lot more power. Last month, the company successfully completed the 11th test flight of its New Shepard rocket and crew capsule, which it says may begin ferrying tourists on short suborbital flights within the next few months. For starters, they need to demonstrate they can safely fly humans to space and back. While Blue Origin’s plans all sound good on paper, a lot needs to go right before they become reality. For this reason, Bezos said, the lunar lander is fueled by liquid hydrogen so it can be refueled on the surface of the moon. More important, however, the lunar south pole is believed to be home to large deposits of water ice, which can potentially be used for life support or broken down into its constituent elements-hydrogen and oxygen-and repurposed as rocket fuel. The crater receives almost perpetual sunlight, which can be used for solar power. He said the engine will undergo a hot test for the first time this summer, but he did not say when he expected the lander to fly for the first time.īezos says Shackleton Crater is a strategic destination that was chosen for its resources. For this reason, Bezos said, they had to develop a special descent engine that had “deep throttling capabilities,” so the engines could drastically reduce their force as the lander shed mass. The Blue Moon lander weighs roughly 33,000 pounds when it’s loaded with fuel, but by the time it touches down on the lunar surface, it will weigh a mere 7,000 pounds. In addition, Bezos unveiled the BE-7 engine, which will be used to control the lander’s descent. Last month, the company hinted at its plans with an enigmatic tweet depicting Endurance, the ship that carried British explorer Ernest Shackleton on a disastrous mission to Antarctica in the early 20th century. As detailed by Bezos, the plan is to send the lunar lander, called Blue Moon, to Shackleton Crater at the moon’s south pole. Today Bezos unveiled a mock-up of Blue Origin’s lunar lander at a small invite-only event in Washington, DC. He is also, incidentally, a big fan of Heinlein. For the past 19 years he has bankrolled his space company, Blue Origin, almost entirely out of pocket and has made his goal of colonizing the moon known. Once the richest man in the world, Bezos is Harriman become flesh. But towering above them all is Jeff Bezos. These days, billionaires with their own space programs are in abundant supply-Elon Musk, Paul Allen, Richard Branson, Robert Bigelow. At the dawn of the new space race, it feels more relevant than ever. Harriman drives himself to the brink of bankruptcy and madness chasing his lunar ambitions, which he feels can’t be left to the bumbling government bureaucracy to handle. Harriman, the “last of the robber barons,” who is hell-bent on being the first man on the moon. Published in 1950, it tells the tale of Delos D. When Robert Heinlein wrote his masterpiece of space age realism, The Man Who Sold the Moon, he had no way of knowing how prescient it would be. ![]()
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