How rich is astronaut Jeff Bezos? Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explains with a space analogy
If stacked on top of each other, the dollars from Jeff Bezos’ Amazon winnings would take him twice as high as his Blue Origin rocket did.
Jeff Bezos isn’t just the richest person on Earth but also in space now after successfully reaching the frontier aboard his rocket. The 57-year-old American billionaire touched down back on Earth after a flight of 10 minutes and 20 seconds to the edge of space and beyond the Karman line.
Back in 2018, Bezos had stated in an interview, “The only way that I can see to deploy this much financial resource is by converting my Amazon winnings into space travel. That is basically it.”
On Tuesday, Bezos flew over 51,000 feet above Earth and crossed the 100 kilometer mark of space.
Check out some of best photos from today’s historic #NSFirstHumanFlight pic.twitter.com/aqQg0gzxi4
— Blue Origin (@blueorigin) July 20, 2021Bezos' wealth in space analogy
In the run-up to Blue Origin’s first human spaceflight, famous astrophysicist and science communicator Neil deGrasse Tyson put out a tweet giving a space analogy to make sense of Jeff Bezos’ unimaginable wealth.
Bezos’ current net worth is around US $205 billion. In his tweet, deGrasse Tyson said, “The net worth of @JeffBezos is about $200-billion. A stack of that many dollar bills would reach twice as high as his Blue Origins rocket launch.”
The net worth of @JeffBezos is about $200-billion. A stack of that many dollar bills would reach twice as high as his Blue Origins Rocket launch. pic.twitter.com/jbNbWDwEhR
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) July 19, 2021Bezos’ spaceflight on the New Shepard rocket reportedly took him to around 106 kms high. As per deGrasse’s calculation, his net worth would take him higher than 200 kms at least. For reference, the International Space Station orbits at a height of around 400 kms above Earth. Now that would be a towering sight to behold.
Bezos’ spaceflight followed Richard Branson’s voyage to the edge of space in hist Virgin Galactic space plane. In the wake of his flight, deGrasse Tyson had, however, disputed if where the British billionaire had gone could be termed as space travel.
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is a famous planetary scientist, author and TV personality who is the director of the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium in New York, US.
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