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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

This is why you should aspire to make it big. Not so you can buy a jet and fancy cars, but to go on awesome adventures and push the definition of "what's possible."

Or maybe I just admire Richard Branson a little too much.

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This is the frustrating thing about most modern billionaires. They're so... boring and conventional.

I'd much rather Zuckerberg took those millions he dumped into New Jersey public schools and built a spaceship that billions of kids around the world could watch fly into space.

I mean, yea Bill Gates malaria is important to solve, but can't you do that AND build a totally sweet space station?

Another Microsoft billionaire, Paul Allen, has done some pretty cool space related things like SpaceShipOne.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceShipOne

SF author David Brin proposes an organization that champions philanthropic ventures that might earn rich donors a historic legacy. For example, funding a flight to the moon or Mars or building a free university in a third-world nation.

http://www.futurist.com/articles-archive/business-and-econom...

No you're not alone on that. Branson has always pushed to be at the "edge", see Virgin Galactic as the prime example of that :)

As cool as the venture was, have they been making any progress at all recently?

I would say so...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12909071

I found it interesting (though not surprising) that the entrepreneur Branson admires most is Steve Jobs.

http://twitter.com/richardbranson/status/53092854683287552

And just to do awesome things for the world. Who knows what we might learn as we go deeper in the oceans.

Or rebuild the Super Conducting Super Collider. AKA The Hole in Texas.

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