WASHINGTON _ Amazon.com and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos unveiled a mockup of a lunar lander Thursday that he said could be ready in time to meet Vice President Mike Pence's call to return to the moon by 2024.
The lander, known as Blue Moon, would be able to carry up to 6.5 metric tons to the lunar surface with a "stretch tank variant," Bezos said during a glitzy event Thursday in Washington, D.C., that featured twinkling lights in side curtains and blue vertical lights along the floor.
Bezos said Pence's call to return to the moon was the "right thing to do."
"We can help meet that timeline, but only because we started three years ago," he said. "It's time to go back to the moon, this time to stay."
Vice President Mike Pence called in March for the U.S. to send astronauts back to the moon within the next five years. NASA has been working on a massive rocket called the Space Launch System, but development is over budget and behind schedule. That rocket was intended to take crews to the moon and beyond.
Pence has voiced support for rockets developed by private industry, saying that if commercial rockets "are the only way to get American astronauts to the moon in the next five years, then commercial rockets it will be."
Another tech mogul, Tesla and SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk, has laid out a plan to fly humans to Mars by 2024.
Bezos' Blue Origin already had a robust manifest of goals for the near-term future.
The company has performed 11 tests of its New Shepard capsule and rocket booster system, which is designed to carry paying tourists to suborbital space. The most recent test occurred last week and had 38 payloads _ but no humans _ aboard. Ariane Cornell, Blue Origin director of astronaut and orbital sales, said on the launch webcast that the firm will carry humans "later this year."
The company is also developing New Glenn, an orbital rocket, ahead of an expected first launch date in 2021. That rocket is intended to carry satellites for commercial, military and civil customers. And Bezos has teased the possibility of another, more powerful rocket called New Armstrong that, if the firm's current naming conventions apply, could be aimed at moon missions.
As rocket development continues, Blue Origin is also building out its facilities. The company recently broke ground on an engine production factory in Huntsville, Ala., where it will build BE-4 engines to power New Glenn and United Launch Alliance's upcoming Vulcan rocket, as well as the BE-3U engines for the New Shepard system. The factory is expected to open in 2020.
Blue Origin is also building a new headquarters building at its hub in Kent, Wash., and is ramping up work at its facility in Van Horn, Texas.
