On Thursday, May 9, 2019, Blue Origin Founder Jeff Bezos unveiled the Kent-based company’s new lunar lander – the ‘Blue Moon’ – which can take payloads, and humans, back to the Moon.
Bezos made the announcement at a press conference in Washington, D.C.
He said that the company has been working on the design for this new lander for the last three years, and that their goal is to return to the Moon by 2024.
“This is an incredible vehicle, and it’s going to the Moon,” Bezos said at the event, which opened with a video from the original Apollo 11 mission.
Blue Origin plans on flying humans into space on its ‘New Shepard’ rocket within the year.
Here are two videos showing Bezos’ unveiling of the new project.
Today, our founder shared our vision to go to space to benefit Earth. We must return to the Moon—this time to stay. We’re ready to support @NASA in getting there by 2024 with #bluemoon. pic.twitter.com/UqQyMa9Zcn
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) May 9, 2019
Bezos listing off reasons people love the Moon: it’s got water ice, it’s nearby, and it’s easy to get resources from the Moon into space because of the low gravity
— Loren Grush (@lorengrush) May 9, 2019
HELP BUILD LUNAR ROVER REPLICA IN KENT
As many of our readers may recall, the original lunar rover vehicles were built at Boeing, right here in Kent, with three of them still parked on the Moon. The City of Kent, along with the Kent Downtown Partnership, are seeking help to create a replica for Kherson Park downtown; more info here: www.apollolunarrover.com.
Read our previous coverage of Blue Origin here.
