- Jeff Bezos dreams of a trillion people living throughout the solar system on gigantic space stations.
- According to Bezos, this is how humanity can prosper without robbing planet Earth of precious resources.
- Business Insider asked experts how realistic Bezos’ plan is. Here’s what they said.
When it comes to space exploration, Jeff Bezos dreams big.
“I’d like to see a trillion people living in the solar system. If we had a trillion people, we’d have 1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins at any given moment,” he told podcaster Lex Fridman in 2023.
To make this dream a reality, Bezos envisions a future after his life where humans live on giant space colonies floating through our solar system, not on planets like Mars. “Planetary areas are too small,” Bezos told Fridman, to fit everyone.
According to Bezos, leaving Earth would allow the human race to grow and prosper without destroying our home planet.
Business Insider asked four different kinds of experts—from architects to astrobiologists—for their thoughts on Bezos’ plan. Here’s what they said.
Jeff Bezos’ space colonies would look like cylinders
In Bezos’ futuristic fantasy, we’re all headed back to space stations that look similar to a concept called O’Neill cylinders, named after physicist Gerard K. O’Neill, who first proposed them in the 1970s.
“Gerard K. O’Neill’s vision is inspiring, but it’s absolutely stunning,” said Independent Independent Anthony Longman. an architect who put together a concept for space biotopes designed to house roughly 8,000 people.
This is significantly larger than the International Space Station, which typically has seven astronauts on board at any given time.
But a space habitat with 8,000 people is nothing compared to O’Neill’s colonies, which could hold several million people and would be about 500 square miles inside, or about the size of San Antonio, TX.
Outwardly, these space colonies would measure up 20 miles long, four miles wide and rotate to create artificial gravity for the people on board.
O’Neill thought we could establish natural ecosystems, bodies of water and even weather systems inside. From there we could build farms, transport systems and bustling cities.
“I’m not saying they won’t be built, but I think it will probably be several hundred years before we’re able to build something on that scale,” Longman said of the O’Neill colonies.
Bezos is not suggesting that humans will be living in O’Neill space colonies by the end of the century. Yet this long-term vision clearly shapes Blue Origin’s current goals and the commercial space race in general.
Both Blue Origin and its biggest competitor in the commercial space industry, Elon Musk’s SpaceX, are developing technologies that Bezos and Musk hope could one day lead humans to new lives beyond Earth.
“I won’t live long enough to see the fruits of it, but the fruits of it come from building a path to space, getting the infrastructure,” Bezos told Fridman.
The challenges of keeping people happy and healthy in space
Before we can live on giant space stations and colonize the solar system, we have many problems to solve. But to make it not easy, let’s start with the basics: food and reproduction.
Researchers they grew several crops on the International Space Station, including tomatoes and lettuce. Although these vegetables are grown in different conditions, they appear to be just as nutritious as vegetables grown on Earth, research shows.
But to achieve the scale of agricultural production necessary for an O’Neill colony, “we need to develop these very safe, closed, self-sustaining agricultural systems,” said Rebeca Gonçalves, an astrobiologist formerly of the European Space Agency whose research focuses on how we might grow crops off-world, for example on Mars.
When it comes to human reproduction in space, Adam Watkins, associate professor of reproductive biology at the University of Nottingham, said we have a long way to go.
“Giving birth in space – you just don’t want to even think about the logistics and the difficulties that can be involved, let alone if there are any complications,” he said.
As far as we know, no one has ever had sex in space. And we certainly have never sent a pregnant person into space. The health risks are too high, Watkins said.
These risks stand in the way of research that could reveal how cosmic radiation affects the developing fetus. So scientists aren’t sure what the impact will be.
To eliminate these risks, space colonies would need healthcare systems that are as equipped to handle reproduction as Earth’s, Watkins said.
“It’s one thing to get people into space, we can do that. That’s pretty simple.” Watkins said, adding that the hardest part is “building those whole infrastructure communities where you have those kind of support structures in place, fully operational, tried and tested, I think that’s a very long way to go.”
Escaping Earth’s Troubles May Be a ‘Dangerous Illusion’
Our industrialized presence on the planet is causing climate change, resource scarcity and a biodiversity crisis. According to Bezos, leaving the Earth is a way for humanity to continue on its current path and preserve the Earth in the process.
“We want to use a lot of energy. We want to use a lot of energy per head. We’ve gotten amazing things. We don’t want to go back,” he told Fridman.
But Martin Rees, the UK’s Astronomer Royal, who advises the monarchy on astronomical matters, doesn’t think leaving Earth behind is for the best. possibility, he told Business Insider.
Using space as an “escape from the problems we can cause our own planet” is a “dangerous illusion,” he said. “We should take care of our own planet. It’s the best we’ve got.”
Saving Earth would be much easier than building Bezos’ space colonies, BI said.
Even if we never make it to space colonies, the work of researchers studying alien colonization could benefit us here on Earth. For example, Gonçalves’ research into Martian agriculture could help improve the resilience of crops in degraded sandy soils on our planet, she said.
“I don’t think these O’Neill-type space colonies will be nearly as attractive to live on as life on Earth, with its amazing diversity,” Rees said.