Tech Entrepreneurs Take On Space Frontier

How many of you are (or have been) fans of the Doom and Quake series? Or how many like to shop on Amazon.com, and how many have used Paypal? All of these products are very popular tech products. Doom and Quake practically defined (and redefined) the 3D First Person Shooter (FPS) genre. Amazon.com is the most popular online store for purchasing media (books, music, movies, software, etc.). Paypal is one of the most popular systems used for paying online. The people behind these are leaders in the tech industry. John Carmack is the legendary programmer of the Doom and Quake series. Elon Musk is the head of Paypal. Jeff Bezos is the founder of Amazon.com. Paul Allen, who financed the X-Prize winning SpaceShipOne is co-founder of Microsoft with Bill Gates. All of these individuals have made millions (and billions?) in the software industry.

Most people have wondered what would happen if these rich "gazillionaires" had decided to spend some or much of their fortune on developing the space frontier. What if they funded the upcoming rocket companies? What if they decided to build their own rockets into space? This is exactly what those individuals mentioned above are trying to accomplish. Jeff Bezos is the founder of Blue Origin, and has just unveiled his plans to build a space center and to build sub-orbital rockets. Elon Musk has founded SpaceX, and plans on building rockets to space. The Armadillo Aerospace founder John Carmack is the "fearless leader" who "will lead us to space."

NPR has recently done a nice story on these tech-turned-space entrepreneurs. With their deep pockets, the space frontier may finally be opened to normal people. Godspeed to all for their efforts.