This focus on the moon as the most effective way to start colonizing space sets Bezos apart from fellow space-faring tech billionaire Elon Musk, who sees colonizing Mars as humanity’s best “Plan B.” Bezos dubbed that kind of thinking to “planet chauvinism.” His pitch for a lunar landing even included a jab at those prefer to aim for Mars. “Round-trip on the order of years,” read one slide with an image of the red planet. “No real-time communication.”
Blue Origin’s mascot is a tortoise, and true to form, the company’s progress has been notoriously slower than at Musk’s SpaceX.
SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets have completed over 70 missions, sending satellites into orbit and ferrying supplies to the International Space Station. Blue’s two-stage orbital rocket, dubbed New Glenn, isn’t scheduled for launch until 2021. It’s first stage, Bezos said, is designed to be reused 25 times. A much smaller, reusable rocket, New Shepard, is designed to take six paying tourists to the edge of space for a few minutes of weightlessness. Those missions, Bezos said, are due to start later this year.
Blue Origin invited a few dozen kids, who Bezos said were inaugural members of a new “Club for the Future,” meant to “inspire young people to build the future of life in space.”
“The kids here and their kids and grandchildren will build these colonies. My generation’s job is to build the infrastructure so they will be able to. We are going to build a road to space,” Bezos told the audience. “And then amazing things will happen. Then you’ll see entrepreneurial creativity. Then you’ll see space entrepreneurs start companies in their dorm rooms. That can’t happen today.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.