"I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon
customer because you guys paid for all of this," Bezos said during a
post-flight press conference. "Seriously, for every Amazon customer out
there and every Amazon employee, thank you from the bottom of my heart very
much. It's very appreciated."
Bezos — alongside his brother Mark, 18-year-old Oliver
Daemen, and 82-year-old Wally Funk — took a New Shepard rocket created by
Bezos' space company, Blue Origin, into suborbital space on Tuesday morning.
The crew enjoyed a three-minute period of weightlessness
before descending back to Earth.
A live broadcast of the event captured the capsule's descent
and the crew's excited reactions after having reached the edge of space and
returning safely.
Bezos is the second billionaire to reach space in recent
days, with Virgin Galactic founder Richard Branson spending over $840 million
on a similar trip earlier this month.
Critics have repeatedly blasted both Branson's and Bezos'
space trips, saying that money used on building rockets could be used to combat
the climate crisis or any number of other problems facing humanity.
Both billionaires have pushed back on that criticism by
saying they're creating opportunities for new markets by forging a path to
space travel.
"I say they are largely right," Bezos said in an
interview with CNN this week. "We have to do both. We have lots of
problems here on Earth, and we have to work on those."
Bezos has also directly invested in initiatives to solve the
climate crisis, including a $10 billion philanthropic organization known as the
Bezos Earth Fund. The nonprofit invests "in scientists, NGOs, activists,
and the private sector to help drive new technologies, investments, policy
change and behavior," its CEO, Andrew Steer, said. "We will emphasize
social justice, as climate change disproportionately hurts poor and
marginalized communities," he added.
The Bezos Earth Fund's goal is to spend the entire $10
billion by 2030.
.jpeg)
.jpeg)
0 comments:
Post a Comment