Jeff Bezos: people should colonize not only the planets, but also outer space

Ilon Musk has long been burning with the idea of colonization of Mars . To implement his project, he performs a number of space projects, including the creation of a super-heavy launch vehicle that could send people to Mars. Some scientists and enthusiasts believe that the colonization of Mars is difficult, first you need to settle on the moon. And only then, using it as an intermediate bridgehead, begin to gradually send people to the red planet and to other objects in the solar system.

Jeff Bezos, head of Amazon, has his own point of view. It seems to him that people should colonize not only the planets, but also outer space. Of course, man is unable to live in outer space, therefore, to implement such an idea, habitable space stations are necessary. For example, O'Neill cylinders .

Gerard Kitchen O'Neill is a scientist at Stanford University who, in the 1970s, proposed his own project for a future space colony. Initially, he proposed to modify the Sphere of Bernal. According to O'Neill, the space station for the settlers should be a structure with a diameter of 500 meters, which would rotate at a speed of 1.9 revolutions per minute, providing artificial gravity. The inner landscape of the spheres at the same time passes along the equator of the sphere, and there one can comfortably accommodate a thousand people. The project was named "Island One."
')
After some time, O'Neill proposed the concept of "Islands of the Two." This is an enlarged station with a diameter of 1,800 meters. A life-friendly area inside the station would already be 6.5 kilometers in circumference. There could be 140,000 colonists here.



Finally, after some time, O'Neill wrote a book, High Edge, where he proposed the concept of Islands of Three. This should be a station in the form of two cylinders rotating in opposite directions. The diameter of each cylinder - 8 kilometers, length - 32 kilometers. Both cylinders, according to O'Neill, should be linked through a bearing system. The rotation of the cylinders creates artificial gravity, almost equal to that of the earth. For the promotion of cylinders need energy. Power source capable of providing rotation, should be about 360 MW.

According to the author of the project, it would be possible to place entire forests, lakes and rivers on the inner surface of the cylinders. In such a station one could control the temperature and climate, manage the change of seasons. The mass of the "Three Islands" in the case of its construction would be 500,000 tons. The construction of such a station at the prices of the 70s of the last century would have cost about 100 billion US dollars.

Interestingly, the film Interstellar shows a station that is similar to the implementation of the idea of ​​O'Neill. A similar idea has been used by many science fiction authors.


Bezos has the idea of ​​creating a station for colonists in outer space since the 80s of the last century, when he was a student at Princeton University. Now, three decades later, his financial capabilities make it possible to begin the implementation of his ideas. Of course, the creation of the station itself is still very far away, so at the moment Bezos is working with only one space project. He founded the company Blue Origin, engaged in space tourism. For several months now, the company has been testing the returned New Shepard rocket, which, however, makes only suborbital flights. But in plans Bezos and much more ambitious projects. For example, the creation of the orbital launch system Bew Glenn, as well as the development of the New Armstrong super-rocket.

The head of Amazon recently said that he wants to create a complex of stations where millions of people would live and work. For this, as the entrepreneur believes, a reliable system is needed for lifting cargo into space , otherwise it will not be possible to colonize space. If such a system is created, the cost of shipping goods into space will significantly decrease.


“And then we can see how the ideas of Gerard O'Neill are being implemented,” Bezos says. “Dreamers go first. It is always the authors of science fiction works. They think about everything first, and then those who make the plans a reality come. But it takes time. ”

According to Bezos, in a few hundred years all heavy industry will be removed from the Earth into space. Here, in open space, there is free energy - the sun's rays, in addition, there is also an inexhaustible source of resources - asteroids and mineral deposits on other planets.

The businessman believes that it is in the open space that a person will find his second homeland. And sending millions to Mars simply makes no sense. “I do not like the idea that we should have Plan B and find a spare planet for ourselves ... We sent probes to every planet in the Solar System, and believe me, this is the best planet. There is no doubt about it. And we must protect it, ”Bezos said.

Who will be right in the end? Bezos, Musk or someone else? While it is difficult to say, have to wait a couple of hundred years in order to find out.