The Space Race II: This Time It’s Personal

Image+courtesy+of+WIRED

Image courtesy of WIRED

Joseph Sannito, Staff Writer

As many of you have heard the internet entrepreneur powerhouse Jeff “The Tank” Bezos has announced he will step down in his role as CEO of the world dominant corporation, Amazon. Bezos founded Amazon twenty-seven years ago and has built a modest net worth of about $200 billion. Although Bezos is leaving his role as CEO, he is planning on becoming an executive chair. The main question of the hour is why did he step down. What is happening to Amazon and should I, a constant user of amazon, be afraid? The answer in my professional opinion is no. Jeff is not stepping down because something is going to happen to Amazon, rather he is going to focus his time and money on something else. 

You may be wondering what this could be, what is more important than being the CEO of the largest company in the world? Mankind’s future in space. Now for those of you who don’t know, Bezos had founded a private Aerospace company in 2000 called Blue Origin. Blue Origin has the simple goal to make space travel both cheaper and more reliable. This, in turn, can hopefully one day be used for the public.

However, many of you may know the famous and powerful Elon Musk, the architect of Tesla. Along with Tesla, Musk is also the CEO of SpaceX. Space X, like Blue Origin, also has the same goals: easier and safer space travel. Furthermore, in recent news Musk has surpassed Bezos in net worth at a shabby $209 billion dollars. Being that, the two richest men in America and likely the world are owners of the two largest Private Aerospace companies. Based on human nature it is an undeniable fact that these two men will compete in a race not only to space, but to live in space. They have goals to establish colonies on Mars and expand our living from earth to other planets. In a century from now, I fully expect Space to be the next big market. Just like how electric car companies such as Tesla or AYRO have taken over the economy.