Why does Jeff Bezos want to go to space?
Last week, Jeff Bezos announced that he would be among the first set of passengers to fly Blue Origins New Shepard rocket into space. Alongside his brother, Mark, and a mystery elite who on Saturday won their ticket at auction for $28 million, Mr. Bezos will be soaring 60 miles above the Earth come July 20. EAT THE PAINTING, JEFF: The Internet wants Jeff Bezos to buy and eat the Mona Lisa  In a recent Instagram video, Bezos said, I want to go on this flight because its a thing Ive wanted to do all my life. Its an adventure. Its a big deal for me.  Some may take that at face value - maybe because they themselves have childhood dreams of going to space, or maybe because such motivations could be considered in line with the self-interest typically associated with any person who could afford to raise the entire world out of poverty and still be worth over $100 billion. Others think the motivation, although personal, is different. Bezos may be hoping to upstage fellow billionaires Elon Musk and Richard Branson. For a trio often considered to be megalomaniacs, a competition to see who will be the first to (in their eyes) make history is not out of the question. But the soon-to-be ex-Amazon CEO could also be driven by business concerns. Bezos personal attendance on the flight makes for an effective publicity stunt. Blue Origin is widely considered to be behind SpaceX in important capabilities and has lost out to them in some huge contracts (recall the first humans to set foot on the Moon in over 50 years will do so from a SpaceX capsule). Making each of Blue Origins accomplishments as loud as possible to the public would be a smart strategy to compensate for these losses. That would also help explain the abrupt nature of Bezos announcement. The 11-minute flight, although deemed relatively safe because it will not have to reenter the atmosphere at great speed, is not a fait accompli for Bezos. Parabolic Arc has reported that Richard Branson may attempt to fly Virgin Galactics SpaceShipTwo to suborbital space over the Fourth of July weekend. If Branson pulls that off, hed beat Bezos by a full two weeks. The stakes, then, may be higher than most think. And while the motives behind the three billionaires efforts may be up for interpretation, perhaps the best explanation is the simplest. As the Blue Origin auctioneer said when bidding for the seat on the New Shepard flight stalled: The more you pay for it, the more you enjoy it.