Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and Blue Origin, unveiled a new moon lander called Blue Moon, along with a smaller rover.
At the event, Bezos, the world’s richest person according to Forbes, described a grand, multigenerational vision of one day creating enormous space colonies in close proximity to Earth, as a way of expanding humanity to a trillion people. This concept, envisioned by physicist Gerard O’Neill in 1975, is something Bezos has talked up in a few interviews over the past year. He’s looking to use Blue Origin, and the new lander, as early steps in this effort.
Blue Moon was in development for three years and Bezos said that the larger variant of the lander will be able to bring Americans back to the moon by 2024. It’ll be able to carry the rover that could do scientific missions and shoot off small satellites.
“It’s time to go back to the moon, this time to stay,” Bezos said.
The year 2024 is also the deadline the Trump administration has set for NASA to return astronauts to the surface of the moon, something Bezos referenced on stage.