There are a lot of people out there who'd like to fire Jeff Bezos into space – but he's doing the honours himself
- Reference: 1623093371
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/07/bezos_blue_origin_flight/
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In a short announcement on Instagram, the Amazon multibillionaire said: "Ever since I was five years old, I've dreamed of travelling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend."
As part of the trip, one of the six seats in the capsule is up for auction with money on the table currently standing at $2.8m. At the time of writing, nearly 6,000 people from 143 countries had registered their interest to be part of the flight.
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Bidding concludes this week with the lucky winner able to look forward to being strapped in with the Bezos boys and crew, being propelled more than 100km into space, floating around a bit in zero gravity before heading back to Earth and parachutes deploying to bring them to a soft landing.
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The whole flight is expected to take around 10 minutes.
[4]Amazon puts an $8.5bn MGM in its shopping cart, clicks on checkout
[5]Blue Origin sets its price: $1.4m minimum for trip into space
[6]If you're the 1% and have 10 mins to spare this July, bid for a place on first Blue Origin space tourism launch
[7]Not so fast, SpaceX: $3bn NASA Moon landing contract blocked by rivals' gripes
[8]Blue Origin sends Mannequin Skywalker aloft again, testing out comfier capsule for future space tourists
Bezos' love affair with space flight is well known after founding Blue Origin back in 2000 with grand visions of commercially viable space travel.
In 2018, El Reg covered Bezos' trip to Germany where he said, in effect, [9]that he has so much money , the only thing he can think to blow it on is his Blue Origin space tourism project.
Asked what money means to him, Bezos said: "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it.
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"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. And I am going to use my financial lottery winnings from Amazon to fund that."
As was eloquently pointed out at the time, this ambition to head to the stars was at the expense of others, in particular the tens of thousands on low wages who work for the internet giant.
Then there's the tax – or lack thereof – paid by Amazon. Last year, an exasperated Dame Margaret Hodge [11]didn't hold back on her view after the company released its 2019 financials.
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"Another day, another dollar as Amazon's wicked approach to taxation seems to go on unabated," said the Labour Member of Parliament for Barking.
"The corporation is flush with cash and the fortune of owner Jeff Bezos has soared to make him the richest person in the world. Yet Amazon ducks its responsibilities to UK taxpayers by shifting profits offshore using opaque corporate structures."
Bezos was last month estimated to be the [13]second richest man on the planet with a fortune said to worth $186bn, some $300m lighter than Bernard Arnault, owner of Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy.
The Amazon creator is due to step down as chief exec of Amazon early next month, which gives him a couple of weeks for final preparations ahead of his flight. He will be replaced at Amazon Corp by Andy Jassy. ®
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[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/26/amazon_mgm_buyout/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/20/blue_origin_price/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/06/blue_origin_passenger/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/04/nasa_moon_contract/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2021/04/15/blue_origin_test/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2018/05/03/bezos_billions_space/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YL6XO6WerhECyqCWTPP-FwAAAE4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/18/amazon_uk_results/
[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/science&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YL6XO6WerhECyqCWTPP-FwAAAE4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[13] https://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddawkins/2021/05/24/bernard-arnault-becomes-worlds-richest-person-as-lvmh-stock-rises/
[14] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Over to you, Jeff
That would require an act of altruism that is completely alien to JB's mindset.
Re: Over to you, Jeff
>He wouldn't even have to set up his own foundation as there are existing charities already doing these things which could use the money (Medicine sans Frontiere, Voluntary Service Overseas, The Peace Corps, UNICEF, Etc. Etc.)
There could even be some sort of system where a percentage of earnings/ profits could be automatically directed to these public goods by some sort of central national authority
Re: Over to you, Jeff
There could even be some sort of system where a percentage of earnings/ profits could be automatically directed to these public goods by some sort of central national authority
One could but hope that when he looks out of the window and sees the Earth below, he realises the error in his ways and once back instigates the disposal of his assets to the betterment of the planet and it's inhabitants, and renounces all wealth and goes off to live as a hermit monk
Re: Over to you, Jeff
"disposal of his assets to the betterment of the planet and it's inhabitants, and renounces all wealth and goes off to live as a hermit monk"
Well, apart from the fact that the lions share of his assets is Amazon itself, that ain't going to happen. But his disposable wealth, on the other hand, is still vast enough that he could easily spend the rest of his life distributing it to worthy causes or new projects. It's actually quite difficult to give away that amount of money while making sure it gets to the right people/projects and isn't wasted or skimmed from. (Not speaking from experience here, mind you!)
Re: Over to you, Jeff
"There could even be some sort of system where a percentage of earnings/ profits could be automatically directed to these public goods by some sort of central national authority"
That is an interesting concept, your 'central national authority' could maybe do things like set priorities, monitor progress and report back on success, and sort of co-ordinate effort to make sure it is not wasted?
Nahh, it'll never catch on.
(BTW - all these downvotes suggest that Mr Bezos reads the Register - Hi Jeff! How ya doin?)
Re: Over to you, Jeff
> There could even be some sort of system where a percentage of earnings/ profits could be automatically directed to these public goods by some sort of central national authority
That could never work. Comrade.
Re: Over to you, Jeff
I'm not especially a fan of Bezos. And it wouldn't bother me much if he didn't make it back from space intact. But I do feel compelled to point out that if you set up an Amazon Smile account Amazon diverts 0.5% of your order price to the charity of your choice. It's not a lot, but it's 0.5% more than most of the alternatives divert to charity.
High risk?
Good to see him putting his money where his mouth is and eating his own dog food. I think that’s why AWS is extremely reliable when compared to Azure/IBM etc.
But what a waist of resources and energy, why not try to solve some of the worlds more pressing issues rather than blow millions on an 11 min joy ride.
Look out for
A grinning ex-Mrs Bezos near the rocket with a wrench
So after his flight..what's next?
I'd almost bet he sells off his rocket company unless he wants to take a few more trips. I believe he's clueless as to paying others for their work or being philanthropic.
10 whole minutes?
...and only a few minutes micro-gravity? That's the ultimate roller-coaster ride and the price is out of this world too. I do hope the plans for these jollies by Bezos and Branson are just the beginning and they are planning to go higher and further.
I know both have plans for orbital launches, but I don't really see these barely-to-space jollies being profitable enough to fund future expansion. They'd need to be significantly profitable to be worthwhile. The further and longer ventures are already funded from other sources, like NASA grants, advance sales of satellite launches and so on.
Over to you, Jeff
Jeff Bezos: "The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it.
"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. And I am going to use my financial lottery winnings from Amazon to fund that."
Or maybe something useful like, oh, sanitation and clean drinking water for billions of poor people, decent homes, drug rehabilitation for addicts, investing in greening and re-wilding to save endangered species and reduce global warming. Helping to eradicate nasty diseases like Polio, or improving levels of literacy amongst deprived children and adults. Health clinics in deprived areas, or maybe train people to provide counselling for extremists who would like to feel better about themselves (research described in New Scientist magazine shows that most right wing extremists experienced or witnessed serious violence as children and once this is dealt with they are much less prone to become racist. Also research shows that people who experience or witness serious violence as children are 3 times more likely to experience a psychotic episode as the people who didn't.)
He could sponsor deprived people to train in top or even middling universities or sponsor apprenticeships for genuinely useful trades.
He wouldn't even have to set up his own foundation as there are existing charities already doing these things which could use the money (Medicine sans Frontiere, Voluntary Service Overseas, The Peace Corps, UNICEF, Etc. Etc.)
Over to you, Jeff.