{"id":18950,"date":"2017-05-21T01:42:23","date_gmt":"2017-05-20T17:42:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/jeff-bezos-lays-out-his-vision-for-city-on-the-moon-complete-with-robots\/"},"modified":"2017-05-21T01:42:23","modified_gmt":"2017-05-20T17:42:23","slug":"jeff-bezos-lays-out-his-vision-for-city-on-the-moon-complete-with-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/jeff-bezos-lays-out-his-vision-for-city-on-the-moon-complete-with-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff Bezos lays out his vision for city on the moon, complete with robots"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_333960\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-333960\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-333960\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/bluemoon-630x371.jpg\" alt=\"Blue Moon lander\" width=\"630\" height=\"371\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/bluemoon-630x371.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/bluemoon-768x452.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/bluemoon-1260x742.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/bluemoon.jpg 2000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-333960\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Artist\u2019s concept shows Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 space vision looks closer to home. He\u2019s gazing at the moon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we should build a permanent human settlement on one of the poles of the moon,\u201d Bezos said today during a Q&amp;A with kids at Seattle\u2019s Museum of Flight. \u201cIt\u2019s time to go back to the moon,&nbsp;but this time to stay.\u201d<\/p>\n<h4 class=\"callout clearfix\"><strong>Read more<\/strong>: Moon rocket engines fill a place of honor<\/h4>\n<p>Bezos has talked about moon missions before, and he\u2019s even told&nbsp;NASA that his Blue Origin space venture could make Amazon-like deliveries to the moon, as part of a program&nbsp;called Blue Moon.<\/p>\n<p>Today&nbsp;he went into more detail about his space aspirations when students asked him questions at the Museum of Flight\u2019s \u201cApollo\u201d exhibit. Bezos\u2019 backdrop for the event included the decades-old pieces of Saturn V rocket engines that he arranged to have recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, plus an intact, never-flown engine of the same type.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"border: none;\" src=\"\/\/html5-player.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/5379619\/height\/90\/width\/640\/theme\/custom\/autonext\/no\/thumbnail\/yes\/autoplay\/no\/preload\/no\/no_addthis\/no\/direction\/backward\/render-playlist\/no\/custom-color\/87A93A\/\" width=\"620\" height=\"90\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bezos said his dreams of spaceflight were fostered at the age of 5 when he watched NASA astronaut Neil Armstrong take humanity\u2019s first steps on the moon in 1969. Now he\u2019s able to follow through on those dreams \u2013&nbsp;in large part because of the success of Amazon, the online retail company he founded in 1994.<\/p>\n<p>A couple of months ago, Bezos acknowledged that he\u2019s funding Blue Origin to the tune of a billion dollars a year, fueled by&nbsp;his sales of Amazon stock.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Jeff Bezos lays out a plan for settling the moon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YDcYdR0Sav8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Blue Origin is ramping up its employment count and making progress on two big projects: the New Shepard suborbital spaceship, which has made five successful test flights to space and back; and the New Glenn orbital rocket, which will make use of Blue Origin\u2019s BE-4 rocket engine.<\/p>\n<p>New Shepard could start flying passengers as early as next year, which would provide opportunities for suborbital space experiments as well as space tourism.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s a long history of tourism and entertainment driving innovations in technology,\u201d Bezos pointed out. For example, barnstorming&nbsp;and joyrides helped sustain pilots and airplane-makers in the early days of aviation. Today, advances in machine learning, computer vision and artificial intelligence are being driven by&nbsp;improvements in graphics processing units, or GPUs.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy were GPUs invented? For one purpose, and one purpose only: They were invented by Nvidia for playing video games,\u201d Bezos said.<\/p>\n<p>On the orbital front, Blue Origin is currently testing the BE-4 engine and building a multimillion-dollar production facility and launch center in Florida to accommodate New Glenn rockets.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat vehicle will fly in in 2020 for the first time,\u201d Bezos said. Blue Origin already has lined up its first customers for New Glenn satellite launches in the early 2020s.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"New Glenn: The Road to Space\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LSftIaLhQzE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Bezos is clearly thinking about frontiers beyond Earth orbit: When asked about the potential impact of artificial intelligence on space operations, he said AI will point the way for \u201ceven better robotic probes to explore the solar system.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Today, Mars rovers have to wait for detailed instructions from mission controllers on Earth on how to avoid that potential hazards they come across. \u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons that you get to cover very little ground with those rovers,\u201d Bezos said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut if you had really good self-driving technology, machine vision and other things, those rovers could keep themselves safe and they could go faster and explore much more in a given amount of time,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>They could also help build that city on the moon.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere, you would want to pre-position a whole bunch of equipment and supplies before the humans show up, and some of those things might need to be assembled on the surface of the moon,\u201d Bezos said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the kind of thing that could also be done by advanced robotics with machine-learning systems on board.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_333933\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-333933\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-333933\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20170520_Bezos_Apollo_63-630x420.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff Bezos at Museum of Flight\" width=\"630\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20170520_Bezos_Apollo_63-630x420.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20170520_Bezos_Apollo_63-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20170520_Bezos_Apollo_63-1260x840.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/20170520_Bezos_Apollo_63.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-333933\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Bezos talks with students at the opening of the \u201cApollo\u201d exhibit at the Museum of Flight. (GeekWire Photo \/ Kevin Lisota)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Bezos noted that the moon\u2019s polar regions would be the best places to build a base, because some craters in those regions are thought to contain reserves of water ice that are shielded from sunlight. That ice could be converted into liquid water for drinking, hydrogen for fuel, and oxygen for breathable air.<\/p>\n<p>During past talks, Blue Origin executives have made clear that it expects lunar settlements to be created as the result of private-public collaboration, rather than purely private-sector or purely NASA-funded undertakings.<\/p>\n<p>Why go to the moon? Almost 55 years ago, President John Kennedy said America chose to embark on missions&nbsp;to the moon \u201cnot because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bezos\u2019 moon ambitions are motivated by more down-to-earth considerations: He argues that in order to keep up with a global&nbsp;population\u2019s growing demands for energy and manufactured goods, we earthlings will eventually have to take advantage of resources and territories beyond Earth.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI want to see millions of people living and working in space,\u201d said Bezos, repeating&nbsp;what has become a mantra for Blue Origin.<\/p>\n<h4>Read more: Jeff Bezos shares life lessons with kids<\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Artist\u2019s concept shows Blue Origin\u2019s Blue Moon lander on the lunar surface. (Blue Origin Illustration) SpaceX billionaire Elon Musk may have his heart set on building a city on Mars, but Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos\u2019 space vision looks closer to home. He\u2019s gazing at the moon. \u201cI think we should build a permanent human settlement [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1651,1508,509,291,1046,625,510,1250],"class_list":["post-18950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-apollo","tag-blue-moon","tag-blue-origin","tag-commercial-space","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-moon","tag-new-glenn","tag-new-shepard"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18950\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}