Jeff Bezos offers NASA $2 billion to pick Blue Origin’s lunar lander in last-minute plea
Jeff Bezos is offering NASA a discount of at least $2 billion for the agency to give his space company a lucrative human lunar landing system contract that his rival, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, won earlier this year. Bezos’ new offer is the latest in an escalating string of efforts to win the contract for Blue Origin.
In a Monday morning letter to NASA administrator Bill Nelson, Bezos said he’d permanently waive up to $2 billion in contract payments for the first two years if NASA adds Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander to a key phase of the agency’s Human Landing System program, which calls for landing the first humans on the lunar surface in decades. On top of that, Blue Origin would self-fund a Blue Moon test launch to low-Earth orbit, a feat likely worth hundreds of millions more. “I believe this mission is important,” Bezos said. “I am honored to offer these contributions and am grateful to be in a financial position to be able to do so.”
The plea comes a week before the watchdog Government Accountability Office is due to rule on a formal protest of NASA’s award to SpaceX that Blue Origin filed this spring. “All NASA needs to do is take advantage of this offer and amend” the contract, Bezos said. A NASA spokesperson said the agency was aware of Bezos’ letter but declined to comment further “in order to maintain the integrity of the ongoing procurement process and GAO’s adjudication of this matter.”
