From Amazon to the moon

If the first Space Race in 1950s and 60s was Cold War politics with hostility disguised as exploration, the second Space Race, which we are living through now, currently appears to be a battle of the bank accounts. The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, founder of online retailing behemoth Amazon, yesterday revealed that his plans for growing space venture Blue Origin include an uncrewed landing near the moon’s South Pole by 2024, with a view to setting up permanent colonies. He also spoke of plans to build orbital “space colonies” housed in rotating cylinders with simulated gravity, accommodation and vegetation.

Blue Origin is already a player in the private space sector, competing with fellow tech billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX and has been developing its vertical takeoff and landing New Shepard spacecraft for some years: it first flew in 2015, and is planned to undertake its first crewed flight this year. New Shepard is a suborbital vehicle, but the company plans to launch a larger vehicle, New Glenn, in the near future (both spacecraft are named after early US astronauts; Bezos has already announced that New Glenn’s successor will be called New Armstrong).