Amazon and Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is the subject of a cheeky petition that is seeking to ban his return to Earth from space. Bezos announced earlier this month that he would be a passenger on the first commercial flight of Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. The entire flight is scheduled to last only 11 minutes but, were the petition to be successful, Bezos' trip could last a lot longer.
New Shepard takes its first commercial flight on July 20. It will take off from Blue Origin's launch site in West Texas, with 110,000 lb ft of thrust powering it upwards at speeds of above Mach 3 (2,300 mph). After three minutes, the astronaut capsule atop New Shepard will separate and continue up to above the Kármán line — the recognized boundary of space 100 km above sea level — while the rocket will return to Earth. The capsule will reach its apogee after four minutes, at which point the crew members will be able to unbuckle their seatbelts and move around, experiencing weightlessness and taking in views of the Earth through the large windows. It is this and the subsequent potential 'overview effect' — the shift in the perception of humanity and the Earth that some astronauts report when they look back at the planet as a whole from space — that Bezos is keen to experience. After that, the crew members will rebuckle and the capsule will return back to Earth underneath three parachutes.
However, it is this final stage that the change.org petition, set up by user Jose Ortiz, is aimed at putting a stop to for Bezos. It contends that he is actually Lex Luther and that, rather than being the owner of the successful Amazon retail store, is actually "evil overlord hellbent on global domination." The tongue-in-cheek campaign also suggests that Bezos has worked with the Knights Templar and the Free Masons (sic) to gain control over the world. For good measure, it also maintains that he is also "in bed with the flat earth deniers" because "it's the only way they'll allow him to leave the atmosphere." The petition wraps up by warning that this "may be our last chance before they enable the 5G microchips and perform a mass takeover" and by urging readers to sign and share the petition as "The fate of humanity is in your hands."
Logistics Of Banning Bezos From Returning To Earth
While Bezos may split opinion, it would seem a little harsh to ban him from returning to Earth from space. For starters, Amazon alone is said to provide employment for 1.3 million people around the world. What's more, there appears to have been little in the way of logistical thought given to the plan.
Blue Origin, after all, is Bezos' company, so it would be a real betrayal were his employees to leave him up there. In addition, Bezos will be flying with his brother and the as-yet-unnamed winner of the New Shepard seat auction. Not only would it be difficult to block Bezos' reentry to Earth without blocking theirs, it could put a real dampener on the trip for the auction winner, who paid a cool $28 million for their ticket. At the time of writing, Ortiz's petition has over 12,5000 signatures, but it seems like the ambitious vision will need much more in the way of support and planning if it is to really get off the ground.
Source: change.org