The billionaire boys' space race is officially 'GO' for launch. 

NASA announced Friday that it has awarded a group headed by Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin a $3.4 billion contract to get NASA's Artemis V team to the moon in 2029. 

This second contract follows Blue Origin's bitter loss in its first Artemis III and Artemis IV NASA bid, after it came up short to Bezos' billionaire rival Elon Musk and his SpaceX rocket company in 2021. 

Combined, the contract brings America's taxpayer-funded payday to the two mega-rich private space jockeys to nearly $7 billion for their lunar services. 

Musk will be the first of the two billionaires to help NASA deliver its astronauts to the moon with Artemis III — unless the maverick electric automaker's penchant for delays and blown deadlines gets the better of him again. 

While both men have talked publicly for decades about their ambitions in space, only Bezos has harbored dreams of a permanent moon base since high school.  

But should taxpayers really be footing the bill?  

What happened today? 

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin was officially awarded a $3.4 billion contract with NASA on Friday, a deal that puts the billionaire one small step closer to putting a man on the moon.

'We are going to the Moon!' Bezos said on Instagram, alongside a mock-up of Blue Origin's proposed lunar lander, 'this time to stay.' 

His post teased a permanent human station on the Moon - and suggests his mission is more ambitious than Musk's.

Back in 2021, Musk's SpaceX won $3 billion to help put humans back on the moon for the first time since 1972. Bezos and Blue Origin had tried in vain to win that contract - then launched a failed lawsuit to overturn the decision.