THE TALK OF space hotels, with amusement parks, yachts, and colonies for 2 to 3 million people in orbit—all a way to help preserve Earth—these were not the elements of a normal high school graduation speech. They were the science fiction–fueled musings of one of “Gerry’s kids”—the devotees of Gerard O’Neill, a Princeton physics professor and space visionary, whose book The High Frontier became a manifesto for such enthusiasts as Bezos.
