Starry eyed Amazon chief Jeff Bezos reveals Earth-Moon shipping plans
Amazon may have begun making aerial deliveries for Prime customer’s courtesy of its aerial delivery drones but when it comes to future shipping it seems even the sky may not be the limit.
Ambitious boss Jeff Bezos is raising his sights to the Moon as he dreams of establishing human colonies with ready access to Earth-bound goods and services, prompting him to instruct his private space travel firm, Blue Origin, to investigate ways of establishing a trade link to earth’s satellite.
A White Paper drawn up to convince NASA and the Trump administration to back the venture was obtained by the Washington Post, which outlines Bezos’ vision to create "incentives to the private sector to demonstrate a commercial lunar cargo delivery service" as soon as 2020 by requisitioning one of its Blue Moon rockets to shunt up to 10,000 pounds of cargo to the Moon’s south pole.
Bezos has even identified a landing site near Shackleton Crater which boasts near continuous sunlight to power the solar arrays of any parked spacecraft as well as plentiful water ice.
The Moon has become the centre of renewed focus amidst president Donald Trump’s pledge to ‘Make America Great Again’, sparking speculation that NASA may bring forward a crewed launch of its Space Launch System to orbit the Moon as early as 2018.
Amazon isn't the only technology firm to set its sights high with Boeing pledging to ferry the first astronauts to Mars and SpaceX championing a new generation of reusable rockets.