Jeff Bezos, founder¹ of U.S. aerospace² manufacturer Blue Origin and chairman of Amazon, unveiled on Thursday a lunar lander that may land on the Moon by 2024.

 

美国航天公司蓝色起源创始人、亚马逊董事长杰夫·贝索斯周四公布一款月球登陆器，该登陆器可能将于2024年登上月球。
 

 

The billionaire revealed at an event here a spacecraft called "Blue Moon," which may access the resource-rich lunar surface.

 

Bezos said that the Moon is a good place to begin manufacturing in space since getting resources from the Moon "takes 24 times less energy to get it off the surface compared to the Earth."

 

Blue Moon is a flexible lander delivering a wide variety of small, medium and large payloads to the lunar surface, and it is able to provide precise and soft landings, which will eventually enable a sustained human presence on the Moon, according to Blue Origin.

 

"We must return to the Moon -- this time to stay. We're ready to support NASA (U.S. National Aeronautics³ and Space Administration) in getting there by 2024 with Blue Moon," the private space company said on social platform Twitter.

 

The announcement came after NASA's renewed schedule to land U.S. astronauts on the Moon by 2024. U.S. Vice⁴ President Mike Pence proposed considering commercial alternatives if NASA couldn't fulfill⁵ the task.

 

"I love Vice President Pence's 2024 lunar landing goal," said Bezos, revealing that Blue Origin can meet that timeline "because we started this three years ago."

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