Space and Physics
PUBLISHED
16
Next month, Elon Musk will technically become the richest person on Earth when his space rival and actual richest person on Earth, Jeff Bezos, is blasted into space upon Blue Origin's first-ever human flight.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.If a petition has its way, there Jeff Bezos shall remain, floating in space with his brother and making awkward chat with a mysterious ticket-holder, banished from the Earth forevermore.
The petition on Change.org simply states that "billionaires should not exist...on earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter they should stay there". A rival petition, with the exact same goals, has amassed just 25,000 signatures.
"Jeff Bezos is actually Lex Luthor, disguised as the supposed owner of a super successful online retail store. However, he's actually an evil overlord hellbent on global domination," the presumably tongue-in-cheek petition reads. "We've known this for years."
It goes on to allege that Bezos has worked with the Knights Templar and the Free Masons to control the world.
"He's also in bed with the flat earth deniers; it's the only way they'll allow him to leave the atmosphere. Meanwhile, our government stands by and lets it happen. This may be our last chance before they enable the 5G microchips and perform a mass takeover."
Fortunately for Bezos, neither petition has formulated an action plan for keeping him from a safe return to the Earth's atmosphere. Should they come up with an idea, they will be operating on a tight timescale.
The 10-minute flight will see the crew accelerate to over 3 Gs, before the capsule detaches. At this point, they can unbuckle and feel the effects of weightlessness, before rebuckling for reentry into the Earth's atmosphere three minutes later. Passengers will land in the West Texas desert with assistance from a parachute deployed by the capsule, where they will be met by a landing crew.
With just a three minute window to keep him in space, their best hope might be that he remembers the petition and it makes him sad enough to alter the flight's course himself, heading for a less hostile planet where the petition has yet to be invented, and the maximum number of possible signatories for future similar petitions is two.
