Jeff Bezos offers to cover ‘billions’ in NASA costs for chance to take part in moon missions
In an open letter to NASA, Jeff Bezos has offered to waive billions of dollars in payments from the space agency in order to ensure his company Blue Origin gets to take part in its upcoming moon missions.
With a potential funding shortfall threatening to derail NASA’s planned moon missions – in particular its Human Landing System (HLS) – the billionaire founder of Amazon and the world’s wealthiest person has offered to bridge the financial gap “by waiving all payments in the current and next two government fiscal years up to $2bn to get the program back on track”.
His letter follows protests which Blue Origin filed with NASA after the agency awarded a contract worth nearly $3bn to SpaceX back in April to provide a lunar lander that will carry astronauts to the surface of the moon.
NASA’s new Artemis mission will return the space agency to the moon. Pic: NASA
It comes less than a week after Jeff Bezos himself ventured into space as part of Blue Origin’s first human mission, a feat which he controversially thanked Amazon employees and customers for paying for.
In his letter, Mr Bezos warned that the agency’s contract with SpaceX “broke the mould of NASA’s successful commercial space programs by putting an end to meaningful competition for years to come”.
He said the decision “eliminated the benefits of utilising” Blue Origin, which has designed its system so that it is “capable of flying on multiple launch vehicles, including Falcon Heavy, SLS, Vulcan, and New Glenn”, while SpaceX’s system would require “10+ Super Heavy/Starship launches just to get a single lander to the surface”.
“Instead of this single source approach, NASA should embrace its original strategy of competition,” the letter said, noting NASA has begun to solicit new lunar lander proposals.
Blue Origin added to NASA that it will continue to develop and launch, at its own cost, a pathfinder mission to low-Earth orbit and an uncrewed moon landing mission as part of its work on the HLS.
The Lunar Gateway: An orbital outpost around the moon. Pic: NASA
NASA has not yet responded to the letter.
However, an audit report by NASA’s office of inspector general has warned that the Artemis programme – which aims to land the first woman and the next man on the moon by 2024 – is “unlikely” to be achieved within this timeframe.
Artemis is named after the mythological sister of Apollo, the first moon mission’s namesake.
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A state of emergency has been declared in South Carolina as wildfires caused by dry and gusty conditions have forced people to evacuate some areas.
More than 175 fires covered 6.6 square miles in the state on Sunday as the National Weather Service warned of an increased risk of blazes in the region.
The number of fires was down to 163 by early Monday, the state’s forestry commission said.
South Carolina governor Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency on Sunday to support the wildfire response effort and a state-wide burning ban is in effect.
People in eight neighbourhoods were forced to evacuate as several fires raged in the state’s Horry County, officials said.
Soldiers used two Blackhawk helicopters to drop water 600 gallons at a time on the blazes, the South Carolina National Guard said on Sunday.
Meanwhile, firefighters made progress containing a fire in Carolina Forest, where people had been ordered to evacuate several neighbourhoods, according to Horry County Fire Rescue.
Footage showed some people running down the street as smoke filled the sky.
However, Horry County Fire Rescue announced by late Sunday that Carolina Forest evacuees could return home.
The Red Cross of South Carolina said approximately 135 Carolina Forest residents had taken shelter in a county recreation centre.
Smoke is seen rising from fires in Horry County. Pic: AP/Horry County Fire Rescue
The fire in the area had burned 2.5 square miles as of Sunday evening, the South Carolina Forestry Commission estimated.
No structures had succumbed to the blaze and no injuries had been reported as of Sunday morning, officials said.
It came as fire crews were working to contain multiple wildfires burning in four forests across North Carolina.
The largest covered around 0.6 square miles and burned in Uwharrie National Forest – about 50 miles east of Charlotte.
The North Carolina Forest Service said on Sunday that it had been made progress on the fire, reaching about one-third containment.
People flee an area in Myrtle Beach. Pic: AP
The small southwestern town of Tryon in Polk County, North Carolina, had urged some residents to evacuate on Saturday as a fire spread rapidly there.
The evacuations remained in effect on Sunday.
A decision on whether to lift the evacuation orders was expected to be made on Monday after intentional burns are set to try to stop the fire from spreading.
That fire had burned about 0.8 square miles as of Sunday evening, with 0% containment, according to the Polk County Emergency Management and Fire Marshal’s office.
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A helicopter drops water to help contain a fire in the Carolina Forest area. Pic: AP
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The North Carolina Forest Service was conducting water drops and back-burning operations on the ground and residents should expect a lot of smoke during those operations, officials said.
It comes as at least six active fires were burning in Georgia on Sunday, with nearly 5.8 miles burned in a seven-day span that brought the region gusty winds and low humidity, according to a Georgia Forestry Commission fire summary.
Officials have not said what caused any of the fires.
The dry and gusty conditions fuelling the fires are expected to fade as a cold front pushes out the dry air mass over the southeast of the US and brings rain by Tuesday, the National Weather Service said.
The convergence of warmth, dry air and gusty winds is not inconsistent with the season’s La Niña weather phenomenon, which is associated with warmer, drier winters in the Carolinas, according to North Carolina State University.
The blazes come after two wildfires in Los Angeles killed 29 people and scorched thousands of acres across 24 days.
More than 18,000 structures were damaged or destroyed in the deadly Eaton and Palisades blazes, which swept across California in January.
Cryptocurrency prices have jumped after Donald Trump revealed he would like Bitcoin and other lesser-traded tokens to be in a new US strategic crypto reserve.
He said his January executive order on digital assets would create a stockpile of currencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, XRP, Solana and Cardano (ADA).
The names had not previously been announced.
The American president said in a post on Truth Social: “A US Crypto Reserve will elevate this critical industry after years of corrupt attacks by the Biden Administration, which is why my Executive Order on Digital Assets directed the Presidential Working Group to move forward on a Crypto Strategic Reserve that includes XRP, SOL, and ADA.”
“I will make sure the US is the Crypto Capital of the World.”
“And, obviously, BTC and ETH, as other valuable Cryptocurrencies, will be at the heart of the Reserve,” he said in a follow-up post. “I also love Bitcoin and Ethereum!”
Bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency by market value, rose over 11% to $94,164 after Sunday’s announcement.
Ethereum, the second-largest cryptocurrency, was up around 13% at $2,516.
XRP surged 33% while the token tied to Solana jumped 25%. Cardano’s coin soared more than 60%.
Bitcoin was trading up around 20% from last week’s lows.
US President Donald Trump signed an executive order on cryptocurrencies in January. Pic: Reuters
The total cryptocurrency market rose about 10%, or more than $300bn (£238bn), in the hours since the announcement, according to cryptocurrency data and analysis company CoinGecko.
This is the first time Mr Trump has specified his support for a crypto “reserve” rather than a “stockpile”. While the former assumes actively buying crypto in regular installments, a stockpile would not sell any of the crypto currently held by the US government.
Mr Trump is hosting the first White House Crypto Summit on Friday, and investors will be watching closely for more clues about the direction of the reserve plans.
His family have also launched their own coins, including his wife Melania.
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Mr Trump first introduced the idea of a Bitcoin stockpile, which would “keep 100% of all the Bitcoin the US government currently holds or acquires into the future” last summer at major industry conference Bitcoin 2024 in Nashville.
After his re-election to the White House in November, there were more calls for a strategic Bitcoin reserve, helping to send the price of the flagship cryptocurrency to new all-time highs.
Under his Democratic predecessor, Joe Biden, regulators cracked down on the industry in an attempt to protect Americans from fraud and money laundering.
Under Mr Trump, the Securities and Exchange Commission has withdrawn investigations into several crypto companies and dropped a lawsuit against Coinbase, the largest crypto exchange in the US.
But in recent weeks, crypto prices have fallen sharply, with some of the biggest digital currencies erasing nearly all of the gains made after Mr Trump’s election win triggered excitement across the industry.
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