Musk beats Bezos to win Nasa deal to put people on Moon

Nasa awarded billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk’s ompany SpaceX a $2.9 billion contract to build a spacecraft to take astronauts to the Moon by as early as 2024.

It was chosen over Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin and defence contractor Dynetics, the US space agency said on Friday.

Amazon founder Mr Bezos and Mr Musk – the world’s richest and second-richest people, respectively, according to Forbes – were competing to lead humankind’s return to the Moon for the first time since 1972.

Blue Origin, created by Mr Bezos, partnered with Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Draper, while Dynetics is a subsidiary of Leidos.

Nasa awarded the contract for the first commercial human lander, part of its Artemis programme. The agency said the lander would carry two US astronauts to the lunar surface.

“We should accomplish the next landing as soon as possible,” said Steve Jurczyk, Nasa’s acting administrator.

“If they hit their milestones, we have a shot at 2024.”

Nasa said SpaceX’s Starship includes a spacious cabin and two airlocks for astronaut moonwalks, and that its design could be converted into a fully reusable launch and landing system for space travel.

“We are humbled to help @NASAArtemis usher in a new era of human space exploration,” SpaceX wrote on Twitter.

Unlike the Apollo landings from 1969 to 1972 – the only human visits to the Moon’s surface – Nasa envisages a longer-term lunar presence, a stepping stone to a plan to send astronauts to Mars.