Bezos Will Slip the Surly Bonds of Earth

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

Jeff Bezos, the richest human on Earth and a man who can afford to do whatever he damned well pleases (except, of course, pay his fair share of taxes), will fulfill a lifelong ambition next month when he boards a private spacecraft, one which he owns, and blasts off into space.  

Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com whose current personal worth is somewhere north of $177 billion, also owns Blue Origin, a fledgling spaceflight company that hopes to soon start taking adventure-seekers on quick jaunts into outer space and back.  The company has developed a reusable rocket and capsule which flies autonomously (on its own), and on July 20th that spaceship,  the "New Shepard," named after astronaut Alan B. Shepard - the first American to go into space, will take its first manned flight.

And Jeff Bezos will be going along for the ride.

Also on that flight will be Jeff's younger brother, Mark Bezos, and an as yet unidentified third person who won an auction for the extra seat with a bid of $28 million.  More than 6,000 bidders from 143 countries participated in the auction.  The money from the winning bid will be donated to Blue Origin's foundation, "The Club for the Future," which promotes STEM activities.  (The charitable donation also eliminates the need for paying those pesky taxes.)

The initial manned flight of the "New Shepard" on July 20th will be about eleven minutes in duration.  The capsule will reach a height of 62 miles and passengers will experience a couple of minutes of weightlessness.  Then it will return to Earth where, through parachutes and other contrivances, it is expected to land in an upright position.

While every possible safety measure has undoubtedly been employed to protect the world's richest human and his two fellow passengers, they will be rocketing into space at around 2,300 miles per hour, or roughly three times the speed of sound - and even the smallest miscalculation or unforeseen circumstance in space flight can bring about disaster.  On the one hand the upcoming flight straight-up out of West Texas will be a billionaire spending his money on things the rest of us poor mortals will never be able to experience, but, on the other hand, it will also be quite a ballsy move for Bezos, one that could permanently end his run of living the high life.

Enjoy the ride Jeff as you forge a new path into the heavens.  The rest of civilization will eventually be following your lead.

Upward and onward!

(And while you are up there, the rest of us will be wondering about how much better our lives could be right now if billionaires paid their fair share of taxes!)