Bezos: I avoid taxes, donate less money, and squeeze employees, but I am a good boy who invests in space for human civilization

In 10 minutes, how to make the world’s richest man spend 180 million?

Last night, Bezos and his manned rocket did it.

Swish and go up

10 minutes later, he came back with a smash

Bezos’ dream finally came true, thumbs up with satisfaction

But the audience who watched the live broadcast for an hour and a half was not satisfied.

Everyone has a long history of dissatisfaction with him. Before the launch, some netizens wished him a failure in heaven.

Someone initiated a joint online petition. As of the day of launch, more than 160,000 people did not want him to return to Earth.

There are even reporters asking questions during the mealtime before the rocket launch: Will this be your last meal?

What kind of hatred is this?

People complain about the richest man in the world, and it’s mostly about money.

The media ProPublica exposed Bezos’s fancy tax avoidance methods, and his actual tax rate during the five years of 2014–2018 was only 0.98%.

Other points of controversy are the news that Amazon continues to squeeze employees, such as not giving warehouse employees time to go to the toilet, using in-car cameras to monitor delivery drivers, and so on. And Bezos lags behind other rich people in charitable donations.

Regarding the latter, he responded generously: his main contribution to mankind is not reflected in charity, and investing in space is more conducive to human civilization and development.

Bezos is serious about investing in space.

He once claimed that he would sell Amazon stocks worth about $1 billion every year and invest his money in Blue Origin.

At the press conference after this short space trip, Bezos thanked Amazon employees and customers: I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer, because you paid for this trip.

This remark was ridiculed by an American congressman: They did pay, Amazon employees paid the price of low wages, obstruction of the union, inhumane workplaces, and lack of medical insurance during the epidemic.

What Amazon customers pay is Amazon’s abuse of its dominant market position to harm small businesses.

Another senator, Elizabeth Warren, also choked: He forgot to thank those who really paid taxes to keep society running.

Launched at 21 o’clock, Bezos personally enters the battle

This time, Bezos’s entry into space is divided into two stages.

First, a rocket launches a spacecraft with four members to an altitude of 100 kilometers (Carmen line) close to the ground. This is also considered to be the edge of the atmosphere, above which is space.

Then, the spacecraft disengaged from the rocket and relied on inertia to enter space, after which the cabin will experience zero gravity for about 3 minutes.

The rocket on the other side also entered the atmosphere, turned on the engine to slow down when it was approaching the landing recovery field, and slowly landed on the ground.

At the same time, the spacecraft opened the parachute to slow down, and finally Bezos and the other four people returned to the ground safely.

Because the flight time was too short this time, netizens murmured: Although the time spent in space is a bit short, the environment in the spacecraft’s cockpit is still very impressive.

The passenger compartment will be pressurized to ensure the comfort of passengers, and the surrounding large windows allow passengers to observe the environment well.

Since all operations are fully automatic, there is no pilot in this crew cabin, and the seats are still very spacious: the safety measures for the crew cabin are also very complete, and three escape tests have been successfully carried out so far. According to Blue Origin, the escape system can be activated at any stage of the flight.

No wonder this time Bezos seemed to be able to do the whole thing.

Who else goes to heaven together?

Joining Bezos to complete the trip is his brother Mark Bezos, 82-year-old retired pilot Wally Fink, and 18-year-old high school graduate Oliver Daymen.

The age of the latter two allowed this flight to simultaneously break the two historical records of the oldest person in space and the youngest person.

Oliver, the youngest Dutch guy, just graduated from high school last year. To receive the training needed to go to space, he postponed his day of going to university by one year.

Oliver’s father, who opened an investment company, paid for him a ticket for the next flight. However, the anonymous passenger who paid the sky-high price of 28 million U.S. dollars for the first ferry ticket was adjusted to the subsequent ferry due to the time conflict.

Oliver thus got the opportunity to go to heaven with Bezos.

Bezos stated on social media that he had dreamed of traveling in space since he was 5 years old. Oliver was one year earlier than him, and has been obsessed with space, the moon and rockets since he was 4 years old.

Another interesting coincidence is that Bezos announced his dream to the world for the first time in his 18-year-old high school graduation speech:

In addition to space travel, he also hopes that one-day humans can colonize space and build colonies, hotels and amusement parks in orbit.

Thanks to the efforts of Bezos, Oliver got closer to these wishes at the same age of 18.

After completing this space travel, Oliver will study at Utrecht University in the Netherlands in September this year. His major is physics.

Space travel is also Wally Fink’s lifelong dream, but she has waited for it for 60 years.

In 1961, as an airplane pilot, she passed NASA’s selection and became the youngest of the 13 female astronauts trained by the “Mercury 13” project.

But before any of them had a chance to enter space, the entire project was canceled.

Failed to get into space, Fink’s subsequent career has always revolved around airplanes. She has worked as a flight inspector, aviation safety investigator and pilot instructor.

So far, she has independently trained 700 pilots and participated in the training of more than 3,000 pilots.

In addition to Blue Origin, Fink has also bought spaceship tickets for Virgin Galactic.

As for whether she will continue her space flight in Virgin Galactic, Fink has not yet made up his mind.

Among the four, Mark Bezos is the only one who is not too obsessed with space travel.

When he first received an invitation from his brother to go to space together, Mark was stunned. He didn’t even know that his brother had personally participated in the first manned flight plan, let alone invited himself.

Mark is a member of the board of the Bezos Family Foundation, a volunteer firefighter, and his brother Jeff’s best friend.

The spacecraft has 14 “experiences”

This time, the New Shepard manned mission, named after Alan Shepard, the first American astronaut to enter space.

This reusable, vertical take-off and landing (VTVL) rocket is completely controlled by the onboard computer. The rocket is 18 meters high and has only one stage overall. It uses a BE-3 hydrogen-oxygen engine with a thrust of 50 tons.

The space capsule it carries has 15 cubic meters of internal pressurized space, which can accommodate up to 6 people at a time, and the launch escape system can allow it to be separated at any time during the lift-off process.

So far, the “New Shepard” rocket has successfully conducted 14 test flights without passengers.

△History successfully launched

During the period, the company upgraded the spacecraft, such as improving the space capsule's sound and temperature adjustment functions, the crew display panel, and each seat is equipped with microphones and call buttons. In addition, the communication and security alarm systems have been tested.

Because it is mainly used for space travel, the test flight range is not long. Although the Carmen line exceeds 100 kilometers each time, it has not attempted an orbital flight of more than 300 kilometers.

The most recent was the “NS-15” mission on April 14. After the rocket separated from the spacecraft, the spacecraft carried the “Skywalker” mannequin to an altitude of about 106 kilometers, and finally landed smoothly with the booster.

On July 20, the “New Shepard” will be launched from Texas. This will be the rocket’s first manned flight.

△Bezos himself is also very concerned about the project

However, the rocket will not enter the earth’s orbit, but will carry several passengers to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere and space, that is, suborbital space with a height of more than 100 kilometers.

Passengers can experience weightlessness for 4–5 minutes and look at the earth from the windows of the space capsule and see the arc of the earth.

Subsequently, the space capsule will return with the assistance of a power reverse thrust engine and land with a parachute.

Musk turns on “Tucao” mode

In fact, Bezos “nearly became” the first CEO to go to heaven, but the boss of Virgin Galactic rushed into space on July 11th 9 days before he went to heaven.

Blue Origin laughed at Virgin Galactic Sky: Spaceship? It’s actually a “high-altitude plane”!

The same scene “repeats” between SpaceX and Blue Origin. On the eve of the launch, Musk also turned on the “Tucao” mode about Blue Origin’s upcoming space, and he was very concerned about the dynamics related to Blue Origin.

Musk believes that the blue-origin rocket just flies out of the atmosphere and does not have the ability to enter orbit around the earth. This ridicule was also made into an emoji package that went viral on Twitter.

Musk himself didn’t mind, and happily responded to the ridicule

The two people’s grievances lasted for 17 years. Since the first meeting in 2004, the space company founded by the two rich men began to compete secretly.

Although Musk SpaceX is more advanced than Blue Origin’s technology and has successfully sent NASA astronauts into space, Blue Origin is even earlier in founding the company.

When Bezos graduated from high school in 1982, he had the dream of becoming an astronaut. Out of hobbies, he founded Blue Origin in 2000.

At that time, Musk was still creating PayPal. After that, he earned 160 million US dollars by selling PayPal and creating SpaceX in 2002.

Recently, the two have forged a beam because of NASA’s moon landing contract.

Musk’s SpaceX became the NASA’s lunar module contractor, and he also mocked Blue Moon’s lunar lander, Blue Moon, as “Blue Ball” on Twitter.

In contrast, Bezos has always wanted to “disturb” SpaceX’s plan, lobbying the US government to allow NASA to provide more funds to other bidding companies, so that SpaceX is no longer the only supplier.

However, Musk expressed his blessing to Bezos before this launch.

It seems that space tourism is indeed a hot industry, and even CEOs have personally “spoken”.

Blue Origin is expected to conduct two more manned flights this year, the most recent one in September or October.

Its competitor Virgin Galactic will wait until next year for its first commercial manned flight, but there are already more than 600 people in line to buy tickets.