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Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos talked about his vision for Blue Origin and humanity at the Apollo 11 Gala at Kennedy Space Center:
For Bezos, colonising space is a more a simple necessity for continued life on Earth. The compound effect of the incremental increase in energy requirements will mean us having to cover every inch of Earth in solar cells, he said, while the solar system offers virtually unlimited energy resources.
"We can harvest resources from asteroids, from Near-Earth Objects, and harvest solar energy from a much broader surface area – and continue to do amazing things," he said. The alternative, he said, was an era of stasis and stagnation on Earth, where we are forced to control population and limit energy usage per capita.
"I don't think stasis is compatible with freedom or liberty, and I sure as hell think it's going to be a very boring world – I want my grandchildren's grandchildren to be in a world of pioneering, exploration and expansion throughout the solar system."
He also suggested that exploration and colonisation of the solar system would make it possible to support one trillion people.
"Then we would have 1,000 Einstein's and 1,000 Mozarts, how cool would that be?" he said.
"What's holding us back from making that next step is that space travel is just too darned expensive because we throw the rockets away. We need to build reusable rockets and that's what Blue Origin is dedicated to."
(Score: 2) by looorg on Monday July 17 2017, @10:30AM (1 child)
Why would we want a trillion population? Are we not all getting replaced by robots and AI:s? If anything in a world like that they would need less actual humans. What would they/we need a trillion humans for spread across the galaxy? I guess robots and AI:s don't order shit of Amazon so that is why he still needs us but beyond that I have no idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @06:57PM
I think people probably start to look at things in terms of species wide goals once they reach the point of having reached the point of nearly maximized personal achievement.
So what would you see as a goal you could contribute to for our species? I think the thing we're seeing ever more people latch onto is simply survival. The Fermi Paradox is kind of disconcerting. Everything we know indicates that there should be countless other species out there, yet everything we can observe indicates this universe is a pretty lonely place. What greater legacy for an individual than helping to secure the future of our species itself?