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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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @03:54PM (4 children)
1000 Mozarts is not really better than one Mozart. You'll get bored with his sound, and if they all have to share the fame, celebrity status will be reduced. And with the growth of opportunity, it would be a mistake to think that the likes of Einstein do no exist today. What would prevent Einstein version 2.0 or 3.0? Presumably modern day Einsteins do exist, but they are not leaving their mark the way the original did.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 17 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)
As technology progresses the outliers required to push things forward start requiring great and greater personal achievement. Elon Musk is certainly a name that will go down in the history books. But look at what his emergence required:
- somebody with at least hundreds of millions of dollars
- phenomenal physics/engineering talent
- phenomenal business talent
- a prioritization of something beyond money
- a reckless willingness and ability to put it all at risk in pursuit of the goal mentioned in point 4.
Some of those talents are seen as generally mutually exclusive. #1 in particular tends to be near mutually exclusive with all except #3. Mozart required nothing more than the ability to play and 'envision' music very well. Einstein required a strong mathematics background, an extremely strong physics background, and the creativity of a child. Modern day Einsteins certainly do exist, but we now need something beyond Einstein. Similarly like modern day Edisons exist, but you need something beyond that to become an Elon Musk.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @12:23AM
fanboi much?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 18 2017, @09:02PM
and a little help from the CIA
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday July 18 2017, @04:36AM
Modern day Einsteins would be buried under "common core" and societal ideology. To succeed, it seems easier to do that outside of the system of schools and wage slavery.