SpaceX founder Elon Musk (left) and Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos.
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Jeff Bezos In an interview with Reuters on Sunday, he said he did not think SpaceX CEO Musk will leverage his close relationship with the President-elect of the United States Donald Trump weakening the position of his space company Blue Origin, adding that he was “very optimistic” about the incoming administration’s space agenda.
“Elon is very clear that he’s doing this for the public good, not for personal gain. I take him at face value,” said Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, which competes with SpaceX in the aerospace industry. .
Bezos was in Cape Canaveral, Florida, for the first launch of Blue Origin’s New Glenn, a 30-story rocket expected to chip away at SpaceX’s market dominance and launch Blue Origin There has been no plan to enter the satellite launch business.
Musk, who spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump, has listened to the president-elect on space issues and last month raised eyebrows in the industry by saying the United States should launch a mission directly to Mars rather than landing on the moon first. worries.
Asked if he was worried about changes to NASA’s moon plans, Bezos said: “My personal view is that we should do both — we need to go to the moon, and we should go to Mars.”
“What we shouldn’t do is start and stop things. We should definitely continue the moon mission,” Bezos said.
Trump is expected to overhaul NASA’s moon program during his second term and focus on sending missions to Mars.