A flight to space is a dream that’s out of the budget of most people, but a new initiative from the founder of Amazon could help make it a reality.
The richest man on Earth is using part of his vast fortune to fund space exploration for tourists, making it more accessible by lowering the price tag.
Jeff Bezos is bankrolling Blue Origin through sales of his stock in the online retail firm he set up, and hopes to subsidise the price of future flights in its reusable rockets.
Bezos and Blue Origin are competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to be the first to send commercial passengers into space.
A flight to space is a dream that’s out of the budget of most people, but a new initiative from the founder of Amazon could help make it a reality. Jeff Bezos (pictured), the richest man on Earth, is using part of his vast fortune to fund space exploration for tourists
Bezos was speaking on Saturday night at the Explorers Club Annual Dinner in New York.
He was accepting the Buzz Aldrin Space Exploration Award at the extravagant dinner where the rich and famous guests dined on iguana, cockroach and tarantula delicacies.
Bloomberg reports that in his acceptance speech, Bezos said: ‘The price of admission to space is very high.
‘I’m in the process of converting my Amazon lottery winnings into a much lower price of admission so we can go explore the solar system.’
Bezos revealed in April 2017 that he finances Blue Origin with around $1 billion (£720 million) of Amazon stock each year.
Bezos (pictured) is believed to be the richest man to have ever lived and has more money than the countries of Estonia, Tunisia, Iceland and Jamaica combined. He hopes to use part of his amassed fortune to fund Blue Origin and take paying passengers to space
Bezos is bankrolling Blue Origin through sales of his stock in the online retail firm he set up, and hopes to subsidise the price of future flights in its reusable rockets. The New Shepard rocket (pictured) made its first flight in 14 months in December 2017
That could soon increase, as the battle to send tourists into space and to the moon and Mars heats up between the three billionaires.
Bezos has varied business interests and his empire should provide enough money to finance the space venture with ease.
The entrepreneur, who owns Whole Foods, The Washington Post, Twitch and IMDB as well as online retailer, recently became the richest man in the world – with a net worth of around $131 billion (£91.3 billion).
HOW DOES BLUE ORIGIN WORK?
The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable ‘New Shepard’ booster rocket.
The two vehicles launch together, accelerating for approximately two and a half minutes, before the engine cuts off.
The capsule then separates from the booster to coast quietly into space.
After a few minutes of free fall, the booster performs an autonomous rocket-powered vertical landing.
The passenger capsule lands softly under parachutes, both ready to be used again.
Like previous Blue origin launches, the New Shepard rocket fired into orbit (one) before disconnecting from the passenger capsule (two), and then landing vertically (four and five) back on the launch pad. Shortly after this, the ‘Crew Capsule 2.0’ pod floated back to the ground (six)
According to Bloomberg’s billionaire tracker, that makes the Amazon founder and ex-Wall Street trader richer than nearly two thirds of the countries in the world.
Bezos is believed to be the richest man to have ever lived and has more money than the countries of Estonia, Tunisia, Iceland and Jamaica combined.
Although indicating he may increase his financing of the Blue Origin project, he later declined to clarify just how much of his fortune he’ll spend on space travel.
At Saturday’s event, Dr James Watson, who co-discovered the structure of DNA, advised Bezos to spend just a quarter of his money on space exploration.
Watson joked that ‘we’ve got to fix the potholes’ and look after the needs of our own planet, as well as looking to the stars.
Bezos and Blue Origin are competing with Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic to be the first to send commercial passengers into space. In December 2017, a mannequin and 12 experiments were launched to assess the rockets impact on passengers
With motivation to explore other territories and planets in the solar system, Bezos says he loves this planet too.
‘We have sent a lot of probes to every planet in this solar system. Believe me, this is the best one,’ he said.
‘The world that we live on is an absolute gem.’
The idea of space as a backup if Earth is destroyed is ‘unmotivating,’ he added.
‘I want a world for my grandchildren’s grandchildren to live in,’ Bezos said.
‘I also want a dynamic world, a world that is expanding and growing. I do not believe in stasis. And this planet is finite.’
WHO IS JEFF BEZOS?
Jeff Bezos is best known as the founder and CEO of online giant Amazon.
Born in New Mexico and raised in Houston, Texas, he went on to attend the prestigious Princeton University and graduated in 1986.
After a decade or so of work on Wall Street, Mr Bezos founded his own company in 1994.
Jeff Bezos was born in 1964 and is founder and CEO of Amazon. He is also the richest person in the world
He initially called his company Cadabra, and then reportedly changed the name to Amazon when a colleague misheard it as ‘cadaver’.
Initially, it was launched as an online book store working out of Bezo’s garage in Seattle but rapidly grew to include a variety of goods and services.
Now, Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the world and the most successful website in the world.
In 2017, the company had $177.9 billion (£127.6 billion) in revenue and is worth around $430 billion (£309 billion).
Mr Bezos himself has an estimated net worth of $121.3 billion (£87 billion).
He has bought and accumulated a variety of different companies and outlets including: Whole Foods, The Washington Post, Twitch and IMDB.
He has a controlling share of 17 per cent in his first company, Amazon.
In 2017, Jeff Bezos surpassed Bill Gates to become the richest person in the world, and the richest person of the modern world.
He has been married since 1994 and has four children.