Jeff Bezos is a visionary who breaks resistance like no other.
With Amazon, he became the richest person there has ever been.
Now Bezos wants to colonize the orbit with millions of tourists, researchers and workers.
This is a toxic vision for which his company Blue Origin is about to tackle an important building block with a commercial space station.
And which should be prevented.
Countless satellites are already orbiting above the atmosphere, observing the weather or securing the constantly growing exchange of data around the globe. The usefulness of experiments in weightlessness is also beyond question. Space stations like the aging ISS will continue to need it for this in the future; as well as for future extraterrestrial missions. The reasons given by Bezos' company are outrageous. Manufacturing products in orbit would benefit the earth, especially if they involve processes that are harmful to the environment. And space tourists would be purified on their flight around the earth and return to the ground as champions against global warming.
The conqueror of the orbit tries to ignore the damage that Bezos threatens to cause in the implementation of his vision, as he has always done at Amazon. To this day, the company is printing around the gigantic CO2 footprint it leaves with its ten billion packages per year, the gigantic server farms and, above all, the countless trips to its customers. In the case of trips into space, the absolute numbers cannot be disguised. When a rocket is launched, hundreds of tons of CO2 are blown into the air. That corresponds to a hundred transatlantic flights between Frankfurt and New York per passenger. And Bezos dreams of millions.
On top of that. In addition to the climatic sin that Bezos accepts, there is a garbage meltdown that threatens in orbit. According to calculations by the European Space Agency, almost 130 million pieces of debris are already circling the earth. At a speed of tens of thousands of kilometers per hour, even tiny particles turn into destructive projectiles. You have to avoid satellites today. The more space trips that take place, the greater the risk that mankind's way into space will one day be completely blocked by this artificial veil.
Bezos cannot plead ignorance.
In the past he has already tried to present himself as a climate carer on Amazon through a (at least announced) billion-dollar climate donation.
It is doubtful that he is trying to strive for ruinous CO2 compensation in his new vision.
Only recently, Blue Origin employees stated that they had little doubts about climate protection.
Moreover, if the company's culture is an example of the future that Bezos is striving for, then one is headed in a direction that reflects the worst in the world in which one lives.
The epoch-making hubris of a Bezos is about putting an end to it.
His idea belongs where it is best kept.
On the scrap heap.