Billionaire Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is back from his sub-orbital space flight and is giving interviews about the experience, telling MSNBC that his flight into space reinforced his commitment to fighting climate change. And his plan for fighting climate change is to move all of the polluting industries out of the atmosphere and into space.
Jeff Bezos, hours after flying to space: "We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry, and move it into space. And keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is." https://t.co/MibdgfkTFd
— Axios (@axios) July 20, 2021
This is a ridiculous idea unless you have space elevators and the raw materials for that industry come from space. Even with a space elevator, moving raw materials into orbit only to send refined products back down isn't a viable economic model. https://t.co/Y78S0Vcx1F
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) July 20, 2021
Just move all the people to space.
— atti💤 (@AtticusOry) July 20, 2021
I swear to god, thought this was an Onion tweet
— Maureen Galligan (@MaureenGalliga3) July 20, 2021
it basically is
— Jack (@Sentinel997) July 20, 2021
Glad to hear that unlike the Apollo astronauts who saw the Earth from space and reflected poetically that all of our squabbling seemed so silly, the ultracapitalist went to space and immediately decided that we should pollute it
— dammit (@MasterOverlord3) July 20, 2021
"Let's stop polluting Earth. Let's look at the bigger picture and pollute space instead" is a weird flex.
— twinsthings (@twinsthings) July 20, 2021
Ah yes, let us move highly pollutant industry such as the mining of rare earth metals into space… that’s realisitic
— Nick Rohn (@h8no1777) July 20, 2021
— Hilary Malson (@hildistrict) July 20, 2021
— Oliver Rautenberg (@AnthroBlogger) July 20, 2021
Each launch of your tourist vehicle emits a gobsmacking amount of carbon into the atmosphere.
— Kim B (@MarieB30755238) July 20, 2021
How damn high was he?
— Tomato Plant Daddy (@RateMySalad) July 20, 2021
It's completely impossible, there's no way to remove waste heat in space and you won't be able to use gravity to pour liquids into molds for casting, etc.
It's not even "industry" that pollutes but energy production.
— #Doomberg: Marxist-Yeagerist ⌬ (@delmoi) July 20, 2021
As a thought experiment on the physics of this: Transferring the waste heat without a water or air sink and separating gasses and liquids without an effective gravitational field will make this undertaking extremely problematic…
— Jason Waldrop (@jjwaldrop) July 20, 2021
If you thought Amazon warehouse workers had it bad in 2021, just wait until you hear about the Amazon mining asteroid workers in 2121…
— Jeremy (@naancompliance) July 20, 2021
How would you transport all the stuff made in space back to earth without creating pollution?
Asking in a kind of snarky rhetorical way but also, like, maybe you can somehow, and it’s actually kind of a cool idea if remotely feasible.
— Untied States (@pbnvnbp) July 20, 2021
BURN COAL IN SPACE.
— Dieter Kurtenbach (@dieter) July 20, 2021
— winter (@winterwarburton) July 20, 2021
Wasn't this a Futurama episode?
— Cosmic Horror (@LukRhodesArt) July 20, 2021
There was a Futurama episode about this… pic.twitter.com/OfJo5LpPJj
— Felix Su (@grandmasterfei) July 20, 2021
isn't this literally the plot of WALL-E?
— 🍑 Peach Crow 🍑 (@littlepeachcrow) July 20, 2021
So how do we get the capital equipment needed to do the manufacturing in volume into space? The raw materials? The energy? And how do we get the stuff manufactured back to earth? How much energy is needed for transport? How much atmospheric pollution is generated by transport?
— Rick Schrenker (@Raster54) July 20, 2021
Might I suggest that finding non-polluting replacements which do not require boosting gigatons of gear into orbit, might have some meaningful cost savings
— rbarris (@rbarris) July 20, 2021
I don’t know but the idea of moving items back and forth in large rocket ships daily seems like it could be hard to keep earth beautiful for long too. Unless we do that space elevator.
— TokyoDog (@Cardofalconbird) July 20, 2021
Going to be wild when they start dropping trucks and concrete from space
— OrangePlus (@KeithRockhold) July 20, 2021
good luck building oil rigs in space
— Hybrid Project Alpha (@aroundofshe) July 20, 2021
He must be high.
— CashSmart (@CashSmartLLC) July 20, 2021
Transitioning into his Howard Hughes phase
— kaballah harris (@GiveItSomeSexy) July 20, 2021
Humans man pic.twitter.com/kFfAmqCPoW
— Dialante (@Deetalksalot) July 20, 2021
I think that would increase the cost of, say, a ton of steel rather substantially.
— Rob Lewis (@🏠) (@GRobLewis) July 20, 2021
imagine the amount of fossil fuels it will take to get “all of heavy industry” out into space
— ryan onstott (@fmhueffer) July 20, 2021
He didn't think this through even a little bit.
— Magnus Ⓥ (@Magnus919) July 20, 2021
“You can’t imagine how thin the atmosphere is when you see it from space,” Bezos told MSNBC, making us wonder if he had the windows down during his flight.
Related:
'Here we f’n go': Prog congresswoman's take on Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin launch is just so painfully on-brand https://t.co/oufhIF3qVQ
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) July 20, 2021