Elon Musk has hit out at billionaire space rival Jeff Bezos, saying he would be on Pluto by now 'if lobbying and lawyers could get you to orbit'.

It is the latest barb in a war of words between the two that was kicked into overdrive when NASA awarded SpaceX a lunar lander contract over Bezos-owned Blue Origin. 

SpaceX, owned and founded by Elon Musk, won a lucrative contract to develop a version of its Starship spaceship to take astronauts to the lunar surface in 2024.

Blue Origin was hoping NASA would pay two firms to develop alternative landers but funding cuts led the space agency to go with just SpaceX, prompting the firm to file a 50-page protest to the Government Accountability Office.

This appeal, that accused NASA of 'moving the goalposts at the last minute,' was denied by officials, prompting Musk to say: 'If lobbying and lawyers could get u to orbit, Bezos would be on Pluto [right now].'

The battle isn't a one way street though, as last week Blue Origin shared an infographic of the SpaceX lunar Starship and called it an 'immensely complex and high risk' approach for sending the first woman and next man to the moon in 2024.

It started in April 2020 when NASA announced it would award three initial research contracts to Blue Origin, Dynetics and SpaceX to develop a lander system.

Blue Origin received $579 million, Dynetics $253 million and SpaceX $135 million as part of that initial research contract with the hope of winning the final deal. 

On April 16, 2021, NASA announced SpaceX was going to be the only company to construct a lunar lander, and being awarded less than either of the other two firms.