Jeff Bezos, The World's Richest Man, Says He Will Use His $131 Billion Fortune To Fund Space Travel And Create Human Settlements Beyond Earth



The world's richest person Jeff Bezos already liquidates $1 billion (£0.7 billion) of his fortune in space travel every year. That figure is only set to increase as he now says he thinks the best use of his astonishing $131 billion (£96 billion) wealth is getting man into the space.



He says our solar system could support a trillion humans meaning we would have 'a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts' giving humanity incredible powers.


Bezos has previously called his Blue Origin space company his 'most important project' and says he one day aims to have human settlements beyond Earth. Bezos made the comments during an interview with CEO of Axel Springer Mathias Döpfner and Business Insider's US editor-in-chief Alyson Shontell in Berlin.

'The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel,' Bezos said, writes Business Insider. 'I am going to use my financial lottery winnings from Amazon to fund that', he said. The Amazon CEO says he has been interested in space since he was five years old and believes humanity needs to explore it in order to cultivate a more advanced civilisation.



'I am very lucky that I feel like I have a mission-driven purpose with Blue Origin that is, I think, incredibly important for civilization long term', he said. He claimed that humanity risks reaching a state of stasis and getting to new frontiers would mean our species stays productive and dynamic.

'The solar system can easily support a trillion humans', he said.  'And if we had a trillion humans, we would have a thousand Einsteins and a thousand Mozarts and unlimited, for all practical purposes, resources and solar power unlimited for all practical purposes', he said.

After the interview the Amazon CEO shared an image from late-night TV host Conan O'Brien on his Instagram. O'Brien had made a joke about how Bezos planned to spend his fortune during the Tuesday night episode of 'Conan'.



'Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says he is planning to spend the majority of his fortune getting himself into space', O'Brien said. 'He said, "I've seen what you people buy, and I don't want to be near you"', O'Brien joked.

Jeff Bezos' space tourism project with Blue Origin is competing with a similar programme in development by Space X, the rocket firm founded and run by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and Virgin Galactic, backed by Richard Branson.  Bezos is pursuing Blue Origin with vigour as he tries to launch his 'New Glenn' rocket into low-Earth orbit by 2020.

As part of this mission he successfully launched his eighth rocket test flight from West Texas on Sunday.  The system consists of a pressurised crew capsule atop a reusable 'New Shepard' booster rocket.



While the New Shepherd capsule is designed to carry up to six 'space tourists,' it was unmanned for this flight. The event marked the seventh successful booster flight in a row for Blue Origin.


Blue Origin will presumably start test flights to move toward that goal later this year, but no target dates have been made publicly known at this time.

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