Jeff Bezos predicts people will one day be born in space and ‘visit Earth the way you visit Yellowstone National Park’

Blue Origin boss takes shot at Elon Musk’s Mars plan

Jeff Bezos says that people will one day be born in space colonies and will take tourist trips to Earth “the way you visit Yellowstone National Park”.

The Amazon and Blue Origin founder predicted that the floating cylindrical space habitats will be able to hold a million people and will have “rivers and forests and wildlife”.

Mr Bezo, who flew to the edge of space on a Blue Origin rocket earlier this year, made his comments at the Ignatius Forum in Washington DC.

“Over centuries, many people will be born in space, it will be their first home,” said the billionaire.

“They will be born on these colonies, live on these colonies, then they’ll visit Earth the way you would visit, you know, Yellowstone National Park.”

Mr Bezos told the forum that unlike rival Elon Musk, he believed colonies were a better bet than trying to restart life on another planet.

The SpaceX boss has set his sights on Mars since he founded his private space company in 2002, and last year proposed landing humans on the planet by 2026.

The comments by Mr Bezos appeared to be a direct jab at Mr Musk’s Mars plans.

“Even if you were to terreform Mars or do something very dramatic like that – which could be very, very challenging, by the way – even if you were to do that, that is, at most, a doubling of Earth,” said Mr Bezos.

“Then you’re going from 10 billion people to 20 billion people.”

Mr Bezos also told the forum that he believed in the existence of intelligent life on other planets.

“How could there not be? There are so many stars, just in this galaxy. And then so many galaxies,” he added.

“The odds that we are the only intelligent life in the universe seem vanishingly small to me.”

But he cast doubt on whether Earth had been visited by extraterrestrial beings.

“I very much doubt that. I think we would know if we had been. But are they out there? Probably.”