Thousands sign petitions to keep Bezos in space


Tens of thousands of people have signed petitions calling for barring Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos from returning to Earth after his planned flight into space on July 20, NPR reports. Bezos announced earlier this month that he and his brother, Mark Bezos, would be on board when the New Shepard suborbital rocket system built by his space exploration company, Blue Origin, makes its first flight carrying people.
There are several petitions targeting Bezos. The leading one, "Do not allow Jeff Bezos to return to Earth," had 42,000 signatures as of early Monday. "Billionaires should not exist," the petition says. "On Earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter they should stay there." Bezos said in an Instagram post that seeing Earth from space "changes your relationship with this planet, with humanity."
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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