Washington: NASA denied Jeff Bezos’s private space firm, Blue Origin, a contract to develop a moon lander for America’s return to the moon following which Bezos filed a lawsuit against his country in response.
“Bezos couldn’t win the NASA contract on merit because he charged millions of dollars more than his competition. His Plan B of having his home-state U.S. senator force NASA to select a second contractor for the mission, which would have cost taxpayers USD 10 billion, also failed. So, his strategy of getting more money from the public treasury hinged entirely upon this NASA lawsuit,” reported the Washington Times. The Court ruled against Blue Origin and permitted the development of the lander to continue.
Recently, NASA administrator Nill Nelson at a press conference revealed that NASA will have to delay the landing a year because of the lost development time it incurred because of the lawsuit filed by Bezos, reported Washington Times.
The delay due to Bezos’s lawsuit puts the US at the backfoot. Experts believe that China’s lunar programme is extremely capable of reaching the moon in the coming three to four years.
China is planning to launch a fleet of solar panels into space as an energy source and to return it to earth by 2035. The energy generating system is anticipated to have equal power as a nuclear plant by 2050, reported the Washington Times.
China is further planning to establish and set up an enormous space station, mine asteroids, have gas stations, etc., to have control over NASA.
Russia and China reportedly have agreed to establish a moon base. US National security experts fear consequent geopolitical consequences in the years ahead, including but not limited to anti-American military operations, reported the Washington Times.
