Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, is halting its New Shepard space tourism flights for at least two years to focus on its lunar landing programme in collaboration with NASA.
Blue Origin announced on Friday that the decision underscores its commitment to the national goal of returning to the Moon and establishing a permanent, sustainable presence there. This move places Bezos’ company in direct competition with Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Since 2021, Blue Origin has offered suborbital flights for tourists to experience brief moments of weightlessness. Bezos himself joined the inaugural flight, and in total, 98 passengers, including singer Katy Perry and actor William Shatner, have flown across 38 missions.
However, the space tourism initiative has faced criticism for its limited scientific value, environmental impact, and exclusivity to an affluent minority. Blue Origin has not disclosed the exact ticket price for these flights, though estimates suggest they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Both Musk and Bezos were contracted by NASA in recent years to develop lunar landers for future Moon missions—Musk for the first mission and Bezos for a subsequent one. Concerns have since arisen that SpaceX’s lunar lander may not be ready on time, prompting NASA to announce a new bidding opportunity last autumn. This appears to be a key motivation behind Blue Origin’s shift in focus.
NASA’s Artemis programme aims to return astronauts to the Moon for the first time in over 50 years, using it as a stepping stone for eventual Mars missions. The first crewed lunar flight, Artemis II, is scheduled for launch no earlier than 8 February, while the Moon landing under Artemis III is not expected before mid-2027, contingent on progress from both SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The urgency surrounding these lunar missions has intensified in light of China’s stated goal to send humans to the Moon by 2030.
