Lifeboat Foundation

Jeff Bezos discussed his vision to go to space to benefit Earth. He announced the Blue Moon lunar lander and provided updates on the New Shepard sub-orbital rocket and other Blue Origin activity. Jeff’s vision is for humanity to colonize space and for civilization to become primarily space-based. Industry will move to space and the resources of the solar system will be used so that growth can continue. There is billions of times the resources of the Earth in the solar system.

Blue Moon lunar lander is a large lunar lander capable of delivering multiple metric tons of payload to the lunar surface based on configuration and mission. The cargo variant revealed today can carry 3.6 metric tons to the surface. There is a larger design of the lander that can stretch to be capable of carrying a 6.5-metric-ton, human-rated ascent stage. Blue also announced it can meet the current Administration’s goal of putting Americans on the Moon by 2024 with the Blue Moon lunar lander.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos Details Vision of Colonizing the Solar System” »

WASHINGTON — Satellite electric propulsion startup Apollo Fusion is expanding its product line through an agreement with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, giving it access to advanced Hall thruster technology.

The Silicon Valley-based company said May 7 that it signed a deal that gives it an exclusive worldwide commercial license for JPL’s Magnetically Shielded Miniature, or MaSMi, Hall thruster technology, as well as a contract to provide JPL with three thrusters that use that technology.

Apollo Fusion plans to use the MaSMi technology in an electric thruster called the Apollo Xenon Engine (AXE), which will provide higher performance than the existing electric thrusters that the company has been developing.

Continue reading “Apollo Fusion Obtains Hall Thruster Technology from JPL” »

At mysterious invite-only event in Washington D.C. and suggests his firm will hit VP Pence’s 2024 deadline for putting humans back on the surface…

On stage, Bezos took the wraps off a massive model of what will be the firm’s first lunar lander, dubbed Blue Moon. The event kicked off at 4 p.m. in Washington D.C, and was not live streamed.

Continue reading “Blue Origin is ‘going to the MOON’: Jeff Bezos unveils lunar lander” »

“This vehicle is going to the moon,” Bezos said during an invite-only presentation to media and space industry executives.

“We were given a gift — this nearby body called the moon,” Bezos said. He added that the moon is a good place to begin manufacturing in space due to its lower gravity than the Earth. Getting resources from the moon “takes 24 times less energy to get it off the surface compared to the Earth,” Bezos said, and “that is a huge lever.”

The Blue Moon lander can bring 3.6 metric tons to the lunar surface, according to Bezos.

Continue reading “Jeff Bezos unveils lunar lander to take astronauts to the moon by 2024” »

Jeff Bezos just unveiled a giant lunar-landing vehicle created by his rocket company Blue Origin.

Called “Blue Moon,” the lander is designed to deliver a variety of sizes and types of payloads to the moon’s surface, with the eventual goal of establishing what the company calls a “sustained human presence” on the moon.

The model of the Blue Moon lander that Bezos revealed today is the version designed to carry robotic and infrastructure payloads to the moon. Bezos said payloads could weigh up to 7 tons (6.5 metric tonnes). But according to the company’s website, “the larger variant of Blue Moon has been designed to land an ascent vehicle that will allow us to return Americans to the moon by 2024.” A vehicle designed for people was not shown at the event, however.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, founder of rocket company Blue Origin, unveiled on Thursday a mockup of a lunar lander spacecraft and discussed missions to the moon in a strategy tailored to the U.S. government’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years.

Earth, in all its beauty, is just our starting place. Blue Origin is opening the promise of space to all.

In his 1971 State of the Union address, president Richard Nixon promised to kick off what would soon come to be known as the War on Cancer, asking congress for a $100 million appropriation to launch a campaign for finding a cure. “The time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering this dread disease,” he said. “Let us make a total national commitment to achieve this goal.”

Welcome to the War on Aging, where death is optional.

Mars 2020 engineers and technicians prepare the high-gain antenna for installation on the rover’s equipment deck. The antenna is articulated so it can point directly at Earth to uplink or downlink data.

The image was taken on April 19, 2019, in the Spacecraft Assembly Facility’s High Bay 1 clean room at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in Pasadena, California.

JPL is building and will manage operations of the Mars 2020 rover for the NASA Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington.

Continue reading “Now Mars 2020 Can Phone Home” »