Growing up, I was told I’d have to become an astronaut if I wanted to see space. But it turns out all I have to do is become a billionaire.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and three other passengers jetted to the edge of space on Tuesday morning and hung in the sky for a few minutes before returning to Earth. The flight lasted only 10 minutes, but it was enough to kickstart an increased push for space exploration and travel, which is exactly what Bezos had hoped for.
“What we’re doing is the first step of something big,” he said after landing on solid ground. “Big things start small.”
Bezos launched a new company called Blue Origin LLC back in 2000 with the goal of making space travel accessible to everyone — not just for those worth $200 billion. Unfortunately, Bezos is a long way off from making that dream a reality. Though Blue Origin has not disclosed the prices for seats on its rocket ships, a public auction that the company held for a seat on its first flight with Bezos went for more than $28 million.
But according to Bezos, the high prices haven’t discouraged hopeful space travelers. Since Blue Origin opened up tickets for future passenger flights, the company has sold nearly $100 million worth of seats, he said.
It seems like space is set to become the next Mount Everest — the unattainable feat that only the extremely wealthy with little else to do would attempt. But unlike those who set out to tackle Mount Everest, Bezos does not just want to climb the mountain or, in this case, make it to space. He wants to conquer it.
When he was 18 years old, Bezos admitted that he wanted “to build space hotels, amusement parks, and colonies for 2 million or 3 million people who would be in orbit.” Perhaps that’s still his goal. If it is, my guess is that it’s only a matter of time before he realizes what so many hopeful Everest climbers have discovered: Money can’t tame nature.
