Big Dreams
On Thursday, world’s richest man and online bookstore founder Jeff Bezos shared more details about his vision of building gigantic, rotating orbital cities that would allow humans to live in outer space.
Human-induced climate change is ravaging the Earth, so many of the world’s most affluent people have suggested starting over in space. Bezos’ vision involves multiple space habitats that could serve as cities, parks, or other re-created Earth settings. The idea — which sounds as though it were inspired by a late-night viewing of the 2013 film “Elysium” — immediately got roasted on Twitter.
Reality Check
The idea of migrating to space to live in a billionaire’s utopia sounds like it was plucked straight out of science fiction, but many people pointed out that Bezos, if he wanted, could spend much less of his money to fix things here on Earth instead of an aspirational moonshot plan to colonize space.
Take Two
Others pointed out that Bezos’ logic — that space habitats would somehow fare better than the actual planet that we would be escaping — seems questionable.
Perhaps worst of all, Bezos’ extremely-futuristic space stations might not even be all that advanced — according to artistic renderings, the sci-fi orbital habitats will have us using the farming technology of yesteryear.
More on space cities: Jeff Bezos: In the Future, We’ll Live in “Giant Space Colonies”