Take me to the moon: Jeff Bezos has offered $2 billion dollars to NASA, to build a lander that will return humans to the Moon this decade

Why does Bezos want to cover the costs?

He wants to cover the costs for a key contract to build a Moon landing vehicle.

“Blue Origin will bridge the HLS [Human Landing System] budgetary funding shortfall by waiving all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2bn to get the programme back on track right now,” Bezos wrote in a letter to NASA.

“This offer is not a deferral, but is an outright and permanent waiver of those payments.”

In his letter, Bezos emphasised Blue Moon’s proven heritage: “We created a 21st Century lunar landing system inspired by the well-characterised Apollo architecture – an architecture with many benefits. One of its important benefits is that it prioritizes safety.”

But didn’t Musk win this contract?

Back in April the space agency awarded the $2.9 billion contract to Elon Musk, rejecting a bid from Bezos’ company Blue Origin.

The lander is based on SpaceX’s Starship craft, which is being tested at a site in southern Texas.

SpaceX was competing against a joint bid from traditional aerospace giants and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, as well as Alabama-based Dynetics. The total value of the contract awarded to Musk’s company is $2.89bn.

Nasa could only award the contract to one company because of funding constraints.

The award is for building the landing system that will carry astronauts down to the lunar surface as early as 2024.