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, at any given time, 1,000 Mozarts and 1,000 Einsteins,” he told podcaster Lex Fridman in a 2023 interview .
To realize this dream, Bezos envisions a future beyond his lifetime, where people live in giant space colonies floating through our solar system, not on planets like Mars. “Planetary surfaces are very small,” Bezos told Friedman.
According to Bezos, leaving Earth would allow the human race to grow and thrive without destroying our planet.
Business Insider asked four different types 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
An artist’s concept of an O’Neill space colony that could theoretically mimic Earth-like living conditions in space. Blue origin
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 is absolutely huge,” said Anthony Longman, an independent. architect who put together a concept for space habitats designed to house approximately 8,000 people.
That’s significantly larger than the International Space Station, which typically has seven astronauts on board at any given time.
But a space habitat of 8,000 people is nothing compared to O’Neill’s colonies that could house several million people and would be about 500 square miles, or as big as San Antonio, TX, inside.
From the outside, these space colonies will be measured 20 miles long, four miles wide and rotates to generate artificial gravity for the humans on board.
O’Neill thought we could create natural ecosystems, bodies of water and even weather systems inside. From there, we could build farms, transit systems, and bustling cities.
O’Neill’s space colonies would be large enough to host entire cities, 10,000 foot high mountains and millions of people. Blue origin
“I’m not saying they won’t be built, but I think it’ll probably be a few hundred years before we’re able to build something on that scale,” Longman said of O’Neill’s colonies.
Bezos does not suggest that humans will live in O’Neill’s space colonies until the end of the century. However, that long-term vision is clearly shaping Blue Origin’s goals today 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 life beyond Earth.
“I won’t live long enough to see the fruits of this, but the fruits of this come from building a path to space, getting the infrastructure,” Bezos told Fridman.
The challenges of keeping people happy and healthy in space
Ensuring that humans have everything they need to survive and thrive in space would require a feat of science, engineering and technology, experts say. Blue origin
There are many issues to address before we can live on giant space stations and colonize the solar system. But to keep it simple, let’s start with the basics: food and reproduction.
The researchers have grown 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 those grown on Earth, research shows.
However, to achieve the scale of agricultural production needed for an O’Neill colony, “we need to develop these very safe, closed, self-sustaining agricultural systems,” said Rebeca Gonçalves, an astrobiologist formerly at the European Space Agency. Space, of which. research focuses on how we can grow crops off-world, like on Mars.
Salad grown aboard the International Space Station is a new treat for astronauts who usually eat prepackaged food. NASA
As for 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 think about the logistics and the difficulties that can go with that, let alone if there are any complications associated with it,” he said.
As far as we know, no one has 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 space radiation affects a developing fetus. So scientists are not sure what the impact would be.
To eliminate these risks, space colonies would need health care systems that are as equipped to handle reproduction as those on Earth, Watkins said.
“It’s one thing to get people into space, we can do that. That’s pretty straightforward.” Watkins said, adding that the hard part is “building all those infrastructure communities where you have those kinds of support structures in place, fully functional, tried and tested, I think it’s a long way off.”
Escaping Earth’s problems may be a ‘dangerous illusion’
“Earthris” from the moon, taken in 1968. NASA
Our industrialized presence on the planet is driving climate change, resource scarcity and the biodiversity crisis. Leaving Earth is a way for humanity to continue on its current path and preserve Earth in the process, according to Bezos.
“We want to use a lot of energy. We want to use a lot of energy per capita. 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 the best thing. option, he told Business Insider.
Using space as an “escape for the problems we can cause with our planet” is a “dangerous illusion”, he said. “We have to take care of our planet. It’s the best we’ve got.”
Saving Earth would be much easier than building Bezos’ space colonies, he told BI.
Even if we never make it to space colonies, the work of researchers studying extraterrestrial colonization can benefit us here on Earth. For example, Gonçalves’ research on Martian agriculture could help improve crop resilience in degraded and sandy soils on our planet, she said.
“I don’t think these O’Neill-type space colonies are going to be nearly as attractive to spend life as living on Earth with its wonderful diversity,” Rees said.