Jeff Bezos will sell $1 billion in Amazon stock per year to fund spaceflight firm

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told reporters at the U.S. Space Symposium in Colorado Springs that he plans to sell $1 billion in Amazon stock every year and funnel the proceeds into his spaceflight company Blue Origin, CNBC reports. Blue Origin aims to start test flights with company pilots and engineers either this year or next, with a goal towards offering 11-minute commercial flights that enable passengers to experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the earth.

Why it matters: America's brightest entrepreneurial minds like Bezos and Elon Musk are investing enormous time and money into space flight. Musk's company SpaceX says it will fly private citizens around the moon next year, and both believe we can send a human to Mars within a decade and should ultimately aim to build a human colony there.