Bezos floats 'national team' to build Moon lander

[nitpicker]

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-50140572

Bezos floats 'national team' to build Moon lander

By Paul Rincon
Science editor, BBC News website

22 October 2019

Jeff Bezos has announced the formation of a "national team" that will aim to build the lander that will take astronauts back to the Moon in 2024. Bezos' space company Blue Origin has teamed up with aerospace giants Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper to bid for the landing system.

Bezos outlined the plan at a meeting in Washington DC. The Amazon founder called the partnership "a national team for a national priority".
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Blue Origin, a relatively new entrant in the human spaceflight sector, will lead the team, which is composed of companies with decades of experience building hardware for Nasa.
(snip)

Under existing plans, the lander would undock from a small space station in lunar orbit called Gateway. Nasa has previously said it wants a lander that's split into three separate parts, or stages - although it has left the door open to other designs and modes of getting to the lunar surface.

One stage is called the transfer vehicle or "tug". It carries the other two elements down from Gateway to a lower lunar orbit. Northrop Grumman would build this stage under the national team bid.
(snip)

Another stage, called the descent element, takes the crew from low lunar orbit to the surface. Blue Origin plans to build this part of the lander, which will incorporate the company's BE-7 engine that is currently being developed.

Finally, an ascent element blasts the astronauts back into lunar orbit. Lockheed Martin would develop this vehicle.

Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Draper will provide descent guidance and flight avionics (electronics systems). As the MIT Instrumentation Laboratory, the not-for-profit research organisation designed the Apollo Guidance Computer that helped astronauts manoeuvre safely to the lunar surface in the 60s and 70s.
(snip)

The national team bid will be in competition with other companies for the contracts to build the landing system. The winning bid could be announced in the coming months.
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[dchill]

1. We're paying too much for Amazon Prime.

[abqtommy]

2. I think it's more important to use finances and personal effort to make the earth a better place

to live in, but then I have what some think are funny/odd ideas.

[Wounded Bear]

3. Funny, I thought we called that "NASA"...

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Put NASA in charge

They have an actual track record.