> Bezos is suggesting he can do that in 5 years.
It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11.
You’d think we’d be able to do things faster now.
It was “only” 12 years between Sputnik and Apollo 11.
You’d think we’d be able to do things faster now.
12 years, and 4.4% of the federal budget (in the peak). In 2007 dollars they spend around $136 billion to get to the moon.
Instead we have multiple moonshots, bringing diverse approaches, and constrained by a budget. Since we know from Apollo that “if money were no object”, we can do this, it’s a good approach.
The reason we never moved on from Apollo is because economics matter. We were able to beat the tyranny of the rocket equation; now we are seeing if we can do it for a much smaller amount. And we have multiple bets on different approaches.