ORLANDO, Florida: An amendment to a Congressional bill would provide NASA with the billions of dollars needed to again land American astronauts on the moon.

NASA would require a 40 percent increase of $10 billion to allow competing companies to build the rocketry needed to land on the moon and return to Earth, according to NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.

The Biden administration is requesting $24.8 billion for NASA in fiscal 2022, which would be a 6.6 percent increase from 2021, Nelson said during a press conference on Friday.

The Congressional amendment, however, would provide a significant boost to this year’s moon landing budgets.

Funding from the amendment would allow NASA to offer a contract to a second company — in addition to SpaceX — to build a spacecraft that would land humans on the moon.

Funding problems caused an earlier competition to be canceled between SpaceX, Washington-based Blue Origin owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Alabama-based Dynetics.

NASA awarded a contract only to SpaceX, for $2.9 billion, on April 16. The winning bid from SpaceX was billions less than the other two firms submitted.

“They [some members of Congress] want competition, and so do I,” Nelson said in a phone interview Thursday, as quoted by United Press International. “I suspect that with this human landing system, we’re going to see more money forthcoming from the Congress in order to have a vigorous competition.”

“Competition is always good because, at the end of the day, with competition you get the best price, and you get the greatest efficiency,” Nelson said.

“This is a very aggressive forward-leaning budget for NASA,” Nelson said on Friday. “The Biden Administration is proving that science is back. The record funding, and the science area, will help NASA address the climate crisis and advance robotic missions that will pave the way for astronauts to explore the moon and Mars.”