Good interview with Bezos. I admire his spirt, and support the mission he has set out for Blue Origin. It’s interesting to contrast his goal with Elon’s goal.
Bezos says: “we go to space to protect this planet...we also don’t want to face a civilization of stasis, and that is the real issue if we just stay on this planet,,,The solar system can support a trillion humans” and he envisions them living and working in space, not on the surface of planets or moons, but in something like O’Neil cylinders. It’s an extraordinarily bold, long term vision, perhaps even bolder than the SpaceX mission of establishing a self-sustaining human colony on Mars.
Bezos says “One thing that I find very unmotivating is the kind of Plan B argument: when Earth gets destroyed, you want to be somewhere else. That doesn’t work for me. We have sent robotic probes now to every place in the solar system, and this is the best one. It’s not close. My friends who want to move to Mars, I say, do me a favor and go live on the top of Mount Everest for a year first, and see if you like it, because it’s a garden paradise compared to Mars.”
And that is where I disagree with him. Yes, Mars is certainly quite inhospitable to human life, but there is good reason to believe that humans can live and work on Mars long term, in my opinion. I also think it will be somewhat easier to accomplish the SpaceX goal than building large structures in space, like an O’Neil cylinder or similar, where large numbers of humans can live out their lives.
And I think Bezos is minimizing the existential short and long term risks that human civilization is facing. The risks are very real: just in my lifetime, for the first time in human history, people created two existential risks; nuclear war and climate change. Before I was born there were no human-created existential risks. And in the relative blink of an eye there are now two. In this century there is likely to be another; general AI, and there may well be more that I cannot even begin to envision, given the rapid pace of technological change. We need to get establish a self-sustaining large-scale human colony off Earth as soon as possible! Mars is one option, living in space is another, but I think more difficult, option.
I support the goals of both companies, and I think it’s fantastic to have two companies focusing on radically decreasing the cost of getting to space. That is the key first step. How lucky am I to be alive to witness the efforts of Musk and Bezos!