--- title: "Bernie Sanders Working to Block Jeff Bezos From NASA Moon Contract" description: "Vermont representative Bernie Sanders wants to make sure $10 billion of taxpayers' funds won't land in the hands of Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos." date: "2022-03-31" modified: "2022-03-31" authors: - name: "Victor Tangermann" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor" url: "https://futurism.com/bernie-sanders-jeff-bezos-astronauts-moon" categories: - "Astronomy" - "Future Society" - "Jeff Bezos" - "Moon" - "NASA" - "Space" - "The Industrialists" tags: - "blue origin" - "jeff bezos" - "lunar lander" - "SpaceX" --- # Bernie Sanders Working to Block Jeff Bezos From NASA Moon Contract ![Vermont representative Bernie Sanders wants to make sure $10 billion of taxpayers' funds won't land in the hands of Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos.]() *\Image: Getty Images/Futurism\* Vermont senator Bernie Sanders wants to make sure $10 billion of taxpayers' funds won't land in the hands of Blue Origin CEO and Amazon co-founder Jeff Bezos, [*Politico* reports](). To Sanders, it's a bailout of the second richest man in the world. To others, it's fair competition in the agency's extremely costly endeavors to return humans to the Moon for the first time since the early 1970s. Given the many twists and turns involved, here's a primer on how we got to today. Last year, NASA [made SpaceX]() the sole winner of a multibillion dollar contract to develop a lunar lander. Blue Origin, however, argued it was being unfairly locked out of the process, [suing NASA]() last August. Then last week, NASA [opened the process back up again](), giving Blue Origin one more chance to be nab a contract to develop its lunar lander. The agency also announced SpaceX had won a second contract for yet another trip to the lunar surface. But Sanders is looking to get in the way of Bezos securing taxpayer money, with a resolution meant to prevent the allocation of an additional $10 billion. According to the resolution, the measure is "a bailout to Jeff Bezos so that his company Blue Origin can launch a rocket ship to the Moon," as quoted by *Politico*. "If Mr. Bezos wants to go to the Moon, good for him," Sanders told the Senate last week. "He has $186 billion in personal wealth. He became $81 billion richer during the pandemic. He is the second richest person in America." Sanders argued at the time that he should "use his own money, not US taxpayers'." That's ironic, of course, because Sanders has frequently been an antagonist of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Now, though, the two are odd bedfellows in opposing Bezos' lunar ambitions. It's worth noting, though, that not everybody sees NASA's change of heart as a bailout. "We are seeing the association of spaceflight with divisive individuals being used to drive somewhat unrelated policy issues," Casey Dreier, senior space policy adviser at The Planetary Society, told *Politico,* adding that Bezos is actually "losing money on this." The Artemis program is a private-public partnership of epic proportions in the space industry that stands a good chance of resulting in the first astronauts landing on the lunar surface in almost half a century. But it's also extremely expensive. Even with pockets as deep as Bezos', space companies are looking obtain funds from US taxpayers, a controversial move given the billionaire's existing wealth. **READ MORE:** [Sanders looks to shoot down Bezos’ moon plans]() \[*Politico*\] **More on lunar missions:** *[NASA Employee Says SpaceX's Starship Is About to Change Everything]()* ## Author I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()