“We must leave this planet”: Jeff Bezos on plans to colonize the Moon and Mars

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is going to speed up his space project, the goal of which, like Elon Musk, is Mars. Humanity "will have to leave this planet" to survive, the world's richest man told the National Space Society on Friday. For the Amazon owner, the space business is just as important as the retail business — Blue Origin, which deals with rocket launches, Bezos calls his “most important” job.

space fanatic

• As the WSJ recalls , the billionaire has always described himself as basically describing himself as a fan of space and a lover of science fiction novels and has repeatedly spoken of his determination to play a role in creating super-cheap and reliable space transport. But his latest recent statements have been unusually "tough" - in order to maintain economic viability, people "will have to leave this planet", and humanity has "little time" to develop an appropriate plan.
• At the conference, Bezos called for an early - on a scale of decades - the colonization of the Moon and Mars, emphasizing that this is "a matter of the long-term survival of mankind": "this is not something that we can choose, this is what we will have to choose." In his opinion, due to population growth, growing energy needs and environmental problems, future generations of people will not be able to survive only on Earth, they need to expand to other planets.
• The billionaire is sure that heavy industry can be transferred to space objects and provide jobs for many people. The factories will be powered by solar energy: “In the future, it will be easier to do in space the things that we are used to doing now on Earth, because we will have an enormous amount of energy.”
• The ultimate goal of Bezos, like his space rival Elon Musk , is not the Moon, but Mars, but for this you first need to colonize the Earth's satellite. Otherwise, you can repeat the old mistake: the United States landed on the moon back in 1969, but there was no continuation: “First there will be a parade with confetti, and then 50 years of emptiness.” “I don’t like skipping milestones,” Bezos added.

Trump backed

• Blue Origin, like Elon Musk's SpaceX, is developing and testing the New Shepard "reusable" rocket and suborbital spacecraft for space tourism, as well as the New Glenn heavy launch vehicle. You can read about it in detail here .
• Bezos acknowledged that space colonization cannot be achieved by the efforts of one company or government agency, for example, NASA - this requires "the joint work of thousands of companies over many decades." The idea of ​​​​Bezos is supported by the administration of Donald Trump: in December, the president signed a directive that orders NASA to begin preparations for a manned flight to the moon. According to Trump's plan, it is necessary to create a permanent base on the Moon, from which humanity will first go to Mars, and then to other planets.
• Even before the arrival of the Trump administration, Bezos was trying to achieve a partnership with NASA - the billionaire wanted the agency to finance the Blue Origin program to send robotic vehicles to the surface of the Moon (other space projects are also developing this). NASA has not publicly commented on Bezos' proposal, but on Saturday, after a scientific conference, it was revealed that NASA and Blue Origin would collaborate.
• Bezos on Friday did not mention that Trump regularly criticizes Amazon and the Washington Post, owned by the businessman. The billionaire, however, joked that either other people will share his view on the development of space, or he will simply run out of money.

What do I get from this?

Nobody implements the program of manned flights to Mars quickly - but competition between American billionaires can speed up the process many times over.

Artem Gubenko