Amazon founder Jeff Bezos thinks the government could offer “a very large prize” as an incentive to parties involved in the modern space race as a way to generate competition and spur public interest.
Bezos’ idea was shared during a conversation between the “visionary rocket entrepreneur” who founded Blue Origin and “legendary space pioneer” Michael Collins, a retired NASA astronaut and USAF major general. They shared the stage at the 2016 John H. Glenn Lecture in Space History at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday.
“I think big prizes would be an interesting thing to do,” Bezos said, citing a potential contest to bring samples back from Mars as an example. “It would be very interesting. … That kind of horse race would create lots of attention.”
Bezos also said that he thinks NASA needs to go after “gigantic, hard technology goals” as he cited examples for that thinking.
“An in-space qualified nuclear reactor for deep-space missions — very difficult, very challenging, not something private enterprise is going to undertake anytime soon,” Bezos said. “Another gigantically hard mission that NASA could undertake that would be very exciting would be hypersonic point-to-point travel on Earth, because NASA isn’t just about space.”
During the hour-long talk, Bezos shed more light on his beliefs involving everything from moon landings to Mars to UFOs to Blue Origin. Here are some highlights:
Why do the people trying to build great space companies (Bezos, Richard Branson, Elon Musk) all have day jobs doing something else?
“For one thing it’s expensive. You need a lucrative day job so you can afford your night job. Blue Origin is, I think, going to be a profitable business one day … but it needs a lot of funding and it needs a lot of funding for a long time. I can only do it because I was lucky with Amazon.”
Why has the U.S. government receded in its interest to get back to the moon?
“My gut instinct is that we as humanity pulled that moon landing way forward, out of sequence from where it actually should have been. It was a gigantic effort with what in many ways should have been impossible. Once it was done we kind of had to wait and let technology catch up. … I believe that we are entering a new golden age of space and space exploration and that the time has come for that to happen because we as a species have upleveled ourselves in terms of technology. We’re ready to do it now. It’s amazing that we did it in 1969.”
Do you believe in UFOs? Do you think there is life elsewhere in the galaxy?
“Yes, I believe there is life elsewhere in the galaxy but I do not think they have visited us and they’re not abducting people, and it’s not a giant government conspiracy. I think when the UFOs come, if they ever do, they’ll make themselves quite visible.”
Would you go on a space trip yourself?
“Absolutely. I fully expect to go into space myself someday. I think that space travel can be both much lower cost and much more reliable and safe.”
Trying for 4th flight of same hardware this Friday. Live webcast at https://t.co/XlqW03DcEB #GradatimFerociter pic.twitter.com/AKyv3newmN
— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) June 13, 2016
Will you be able to order something on Amazon from up there?
“Yeah, but you won’t be able to get it delivered up there.”
Do you think [Blue Origin] could be your greater legacy than even Amazon?
“I have lots of things that are important to me and important to my heart. If you’re talking just about professional life, I think that if Blue Origin could enable that next generation to really have entrepreneurial dynamism in space, that would be something, when I’m 80 years old, I would look back on, I would be so happy.”