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It’s no secret that SpaceX’s Starship Super Heavy Booster will be an absolute beast. The rocket stage, meant to launch the also-huge Starship spacecraft into orbit, will be sporting an outrageous number of individual rocket engines — 29 to be exact — making it one of the biggest rocket boosters in history.

A photo shared by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk today on Twitter shows the sheer scale of the operation — and how far the space company has come in building the first flight-and orbit-worthy prototype.

First of all the title is highly misleading and directly contradicted by the article itself and the actual letter. (He’s not ‘offering’ NASA money he’s voluntarily forgoing payment equal to the SpaceX award for the contract. Now considering the initial pricing was closer to 10 billion that would essentially mean that NASA would be on the hook for about 8 billion but considering the total SpaceX contract is also about 10 billion that still fits into the new Congressional budget, if barely) Secondly considering that Blue Origin is only one of the companies that are cooperating to this bid if the other companies do no agree they he actually WILL be paying those companies to participate. Thirdly while the overall concept was rejected it pays to keep in mind it was ONLY rejected for the price and some questions on the proposed engine development budget so this goes a long way to show they are putting more ‘skin’ in the game than SpaceX. So interesting but highly disappointing ‘take’ on the offer by VT.


Jeff Bezos has offered NASA $2 billion in exchange for a moon contract that will allow Blue Origin to land astronauts in space. The Amazon founder, 57, made history when he went to space last week, and now in an open letter to administrator Bill Nelson on July 26, he…

How true?


However, after subsequent reporting, I discovered a kernel of truth to the rumors of stainless steel and Blue Origin rockets. Three sources have confirmed to Ars that Blue Origin has started working on a project to develop a fully reusable upper stage for New Glenn, which may potentially use stainless steel propellant tanks.

The primary goal of this change is to bring down the overall launch cost of the New Glenn rocket. The vehicle’s large upper stage, with a 7-meter diameter and two BE-3U engines, is costly, and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is looking for ways to make the overall rocket more economical.

“This is the difference between taking a profit and a loss on New Glenn launches,” said one industry source familiar with the reusable upper-stage plan.

What i would suggest is landing Atlas robots in waves on the Moon, the first wave builds a solar panel farm for power, the second repairs the first wave, the third joins the first two to begin building large scale runways, the fourth joins the first three to begin building permanent structures.

The Moon is close enough for teleoperations, and in the 2030s, when we actually do Mars, the AI could repeat the whole thing there.


Before they explore Mars, the robots explore Martian-like caves on Earth first.

JEFF Bezos has offered NASA $2 billion in exchange for a contract to allow astronauts to land on the moon.

The Amazon founder made his offer to administrator Bill Nelson in an open letter on Monday, a week after his own historic rocket launch.

Billionaire Bezos wrote: Blue Origin is committed to building a future where millions of people live and work in space to benefit the Earth.

NASA has selected Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, California, to provide launch services for Earth’s first mission to conduct detailed investigations of Jupiter’s moon Europa.

The Europa Clipper mission will launch in October 2024 on a Falcon Heavy rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The total contract award amount for launch services is approximately $178 million.

Europa Clipper will conduct a detailed survey of Europa and use a sophisticated suite of science instruments to investigate whether the icy moon has conditions suitable for life. Key mission objectives are to produce high-resolution images of Europa’s surface, determine its composition, look for signs of recent or ongoing geological activity, measure the thickness of the moon’s icy shell, search for subsurface lakes, and determine the depth and salinity of Europa’s ocean.