By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Jeff Bezos will travel to space on July 20 on his New Shepard rocket and a petition seeking to prevent him from returning to the earth has gathered more than 70,000 signatories, and still counting, an initiative that also targets other billionaires.
The world’s richest man owns, among other properties, Amazon and Washington Post, and is the founder of space-exploration firm Blue Origin, which built the New Shepard rocket.
Bezos is worth more than $202.3 billion, according to Forbes.
But it is alleged that he and other billionaires such as Elon Musk and Warren Buffet exploit tax loopholes like Donald Trump to avoid paying little or no federal tax, per expose by ProPublica, an investigative website.
The report bolsters President Joe Biden’s argument – supported by Bezos – that the top wealthiest in the US should pay higher income tax to fund social infrastructure that would raise living standards for the poor and the middle class.
Biden also wants to raise corporate tax to between 25 and 28 per cent. Trump had in 2017 slashed it to the current 21 per cent from 35 per cent to cater to his cronies.
Details claiming to show how little income tax US billionaires pay were leaked to ProPublica, which says it has seen the tax returns of some of the world’s richest people, including Bezos, Musk, and Buffett.
ProPublica alleged Bezos paid no tax in 2007 and 2011, while Tesla’s Musk paid nothing in 2018.
Space odyssey
Bezos announced on June 7 that he and his brother, Mark, would fly into space aboard New Shepard in its first flight carrying people.
Three days after the announcement, two petitions were launched on Change.org to try to prevent his reentry to the earth. Each had garnered thousands of followers in just 10 days.
The front-runner in the petitions, “Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth,” had collected more than 33,000 signatures by late Sunday.
“Billionaires should not exist,” the description read. “On Earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter they should stay there.”
Some signatories gave a reason for signing the petition, which included comments such as “being let back into Earth is a privilege – not a right,” and “Earth don’t want people like Jeff, Bill, Elon and other such billionaires” (referring to Bill Gates and Elon Musk).
Another petition, called “Petition To Not Allow Jeff Bezos Re-Entry To Earth,” has accumulated more than 19,000 signatures and is quickly gaining traction.
Jose Ortiz, who set up the petition, said in the description that Bezos was “an evil overlord hellbent on global domination.”
“The fate of humanity is in your hands,” Ortiz also wrote.
Both petitions are seeking 25,000 to 50,000 signatures, which would make them two of the top-signed petitions on Change.org, according to the website.
Business Insider reports that Bezos plans to take an 11-minute flight to the edge of space in New Shepard alongside his brother and an unnamed auction winner who paid $28 million for a seat.
They will be strapped into a dome-shaped capsule, which sits on top of the rocket booster.
Once New Shepard reaches the Kármán line – an imaginary boundary 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, above the Earth’s surface – the capsule is designed to separate from the booster, reenter the atmosphere, and float back down to Earth with the help of parachutes.
Childhood dream
“I want to go on this flight because it’s a thing I wanted to do all my life,” Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram on June 7. “It’s an adventure – it’s a big deal for me.”
New Shepard rocket is reusable and has capacity for six passengers in its capsule, according to npr.org
“The auction for the very first seat on #NewShepard has concluded with a winning bid of $28 million. The winning bid amount will be donated to Blue Origin’s foundation, @ClubforFuture. Full replay of the auction webcast: https://t.co/5Vc8IvWxJR pic.twitter.com/IlGbgOFmhx
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) June 12, 2021
“If you see the Earth from space, it changes you. It changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity. It’s one Earth,” Bezos said in a video posted to Instagram.
“Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
No pilots on board
Bezos isn’t the only billionaire with his sights set on out-of-this-world endeavors, npr.org adds.
Blue Origin’s rocket is called New Shepard, and it’s reusable – the idea being that reusing rockets will lower the cost of going to space and make it more accessible. The pressurized capsule has space for six passengers. There are no pilots.
This will be the first time a crew will be aboard the New Shepard, in a capsule attached to the rocket, npr.org adds.
Bidding for a seat on the flight
You can bid on a seat on the flight in an auction that benefits Blue Origin’s foundation, which has the mission of inspiring future generations to pursue careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics).
The current high bid is $2.8 million.
The flight is scheduled for July 20 – the anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969.
What Bezos is going “to space” means
Technically, the Karman line is the altitude at which space begins – about 62 miles above sea level.
But Bezos won’t be above that line for long. The flight is expected to last about 11 minutes, and only a small portion of that time is above the Karman line, according to a graphic of the flight trajectory on Blue Origin’s website.
The New Shepard’s journey is called suborbital flight, meaning the rocket isn’t powerful enough to enter Earth’s orbit.
Billionaires in giant leap
Bezos isn’t alone in spending some of his enormous wealth on space exploration.
Musk’s SpaceX Crew Dragon now regularly carries astronauts to and from the International Space Station. And in May, a test flight by Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic reached an altitude of 55 miles, marking its third human spaceflight.
But neither Musk nor Branson has traveled to space yet in their companies’ aircraft.
In 2014, two pilots were aboard a Virgin Galactic test flight that crashed in California’s Mojave Desert, killing one of them. An investigation found that pilot error and design problems were to blame in the crash.
Four employees of Virgin Galactic are expected to join the company’s next test flight, and Branson is to go on the flight after that, the BBC reported. Branson said he is actively preparing his body for spaceflight.
Virgin Galactic’s design looks light-years different from Blue Origin’s New Shepard. Virgin’s craft resembles an airplane, while the New Shepard is an actual rocket.
But Bezos says Virgin Galactic’s flights don’t really reach space.
“One of the issues that Virgin Galactic will have to address, eventually, is that they are not flying above the Karman Line, not yet,” Bezos told SpaceNews in 2019.
“I think one of the things they will have to figure out is how to get above the Karman Line.”