A poorly-known characteristic of bell curves is that despite the bulk of the curve being fairly "normal", the extremes can be very extreme, and at the top end the spacing between #1 and #2 can be surprisingly large. Outliers can really be outliers. But you'll never have very many of them.
Sure, but the OP's point is that there are over a thousand billionaires in the world. It's not the fact that outliers exist, it's that fact that among people with a billion dollars, most don't seem to care about this type of greatness.
That is: it's easy to imagine a world where half of the billionaires are doing outlandish things, and the outliers are (say) the guys who are putting men on Mars at a reasonable price. Why isn't the world like that?
I don't think it is surprising most billionaire do not pursue this kind of greatness. They just aren't different from other guys. There, the few who go and try to climb mount Everest "because it's there" or who try and row the pacific are rare, too.
Secondly, if half the billionaires were to do the same outlandish things, we wouldn't call them outlandish.
For example, there probably was a time when quite a few billionaires went elephant hunting. Then, that was not outlandish. Now, it would be.
Now, I think there are plenty of billionaires doing outlandish things, but just not in a highly visible technical direction. For example, Ted Turner started a world-wide news network, tried to start his own Olympic Games, and has a huge herd of bison. Others buy sports clubs, try to win the America's cup, or try to build a mechanical clock that will run for 10000 years (http://longnow.org/). Yet others see it as their goal to get higher on Forbes' list of billionaires (http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml)
Another thing I am curious about: who are the one or two billionaires at the other end of that curve?
Considering most billionaires either inherit a significant nest-egg or got there from bushiness / networking or the financial sector I suspect they mostly lack the hard science background to know what's worth perusing.
Note: Inherited wealth tends to be further from the top, while 4 of the top 20 inherited it from Walmart the percentage increases when you look in the 1-5 billion range.
You also find people like Alfredo Harp Helú (born 1944) is a Mexican businessman of Lebanese origin, and as of 2011, with a net worth of $1.0 billion, is according to Forbes the 1140th richest person in the world. He is also the cousin of Carlos Slim Helú, who as of 2011 is the richest person in the world as ranked by Forbes.
