OPINION: Billionaires In Space
OPINION: Billionaires In Space
By William Jones
NASA’s Monopoly Is Over
It is now about 50 years since Neil Armstrong, was the first man to step on the moon. But in the era of space travel now dawning, far more of us are destined to join him. In America’s new space age, NASA’s monopoly is over. The leaders are companies, not countries. And they are about to prove anyone with enough money can become an astronaut. The biggest names in the current space race are three of the richest men in the world, Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.
Space Tourism Starts Off Slow
“People want to go to space, people should go to space, because they come back changed,” said Richard Branson, the Virgin-brand billionaire who launched his space tourism business in 2004. From Virgin Galactic’s spaceport in New Mexico, six passengers per flight will rocket more than 62 miles above Earth for the ultimate selfie. Six hundred people have pre-paid 250,000 dollars for the chance to fly, including 58-year-old Floridian ” It’s my turn, and I’m going,” MaryAnn Barry said. “I do want to see what the Earth looks like from space. I want to have that overview effect experience.” Virgin Galactic on Sunday July 11, 2021 launched its first flight carrying Branson and several employees on a 53 mile high . It is just one of many steps needed before it will launch a single paying customer. “It’s taken us fourteen years,” Branson said. “Space is hard. We’ve had our tears. We’ve had our joys. But I’ll tell you what, the joys have been fantastic.”
Jeff Bezos And Blue Origin
Another billionaire with his eyes on the stars is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. His space company, Blue Origin, hopes to launch tourists in a reusable vehicle by year’s end — but the company has yet to start selling tickets. Bezos is scheduled for his own flight on July 20th, 2021. Bezos also wants to build the infrastructure to colonize space one day, starting with a presence on the moon. “I think that’s entirely believable,” Bezos said. “If you went back in time one hundred years and told people today that you would be able to buy a ticket and fly across the world on a jetliner, they would have thought you were crazy.”
NASA Tires Of Hitching Rides With The Russians
When NASA’s Space Shuttle program ended in 2011, astronauts had only one way to get to the international space station: hitch a ride on the Russian Soyuz. But NASA wants American space taxis – so it hired two companies, SpaceX and Boeing. Astronaut Chris Ferguson commanded NASA’s final shuttle mission. He hopes to ride a spaceship again – specifically, the Boeing Starliner, which he helped design. “I am a corporate astronaut,” Ferguson said. “Now what the heck is a corporate astronaut? We don’t know.”
Elon Musk Brings Us SpaceX
SpaceX is a vision of Tesla founder Elon Musk. Musk has built reusable rockets and a sleek space capsule called Crew Dragon. On 30 May 2020, SpaceX launched two NASA astronauts (Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken) into orbit on a Crew Dragon spacecraft. SpaceX is the first private company to send astronauts to the International Space Station and marks the first crewed launched from American soil in 9 years. SpaceX’s first crew, NASA astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are very competitive.
Competition Is Good
Hurley said he never had a doubt that his team would make it before Boeing’s Team Ferguson. “I played a lot of sports competitively. And I have no problem with a little healthy competition,” he said. “And I think it’s better. It makes you better, and it makes him better, and it makes both companies better — and in the end, who benefits? The country. You know, we get redundant access to space.” Redundant space access and rocket flying tourists is a giant leap from the footprints Apollo 11 left behind fifty years ago.
The Shoulders Of Giants
“The only reason we can do the things we can do today is that we are standing on the shoulders of giants,” Bezos said. “So all of those things that came before are what make it possible for a small team… to go do these amazing things.”
Finding Ways To Leave It
The risk to our planet from climate change means we have to think much more significantly. Perhaps the fact that life on Earth feels so precarious at this moment explains, at least in part, why Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk want to find ways to get off planet. But it’s essential to keep in mind that these two men are just two voices among billions of earthlings. It is incumbent on the rest of us to take more control of how we will move into the brave new worlds beyond our gem of a planet. It seems to me, we have handed over so much of our fate to so few people over the last decades, especially when it comes to critical technology. Yet, as we take tentative steps toward leaving Earth, it feels like we are continuing to place too much of our trust in the hands of tech titans.
Think about it
We, the people invented the internet, and the tech moguls pretty much own it. And we, the people, invented space travel, and it now looks as if the moguls could own that, too. Let’s hope not. NASA and other government space agencies worldwide need our continued support to increase space exploration. Keep in mind a hidden message that NASA engineers put onto the descent parachute of the Perseverance rover. The colors on the chute were a binary code that translates into “Dare mighty things.” Coming from across the vast and empty universe, a message was not meant just for Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk. It was meant for all of us.
Priorities Change When Bellies Are Empty
With an estimated net worth of $187 billion, there’s a whole lot Bezos could do to change that — especially given the time he’ll now have on his hands since he’s stepping down from his role as Amazon’s chief executive to focus on such things as space travel. According to the World Bank, 689 million people live in extreme poverty, defined as less than $1.90 per day. Half of them are children. In addition, the coronavirus pandemic has demolished two decades of progress, pushing an additional 120 million people into extreme poverty — a number that is only expected to rise by the end of the year.
Finally
There are some greater questions. Is it morally right, considering the enormous needs on this planet, to spend money developing space travel instead of spending it on improving the lives of so many suffering here? Is it right to develop commercial space travel when the carbon imprint from such flights is so high? That’s when the other side of my brain steps up and says, hey dummy, somebody is going up there and if we miss our chance, or fall behind, we could be in serious danger from those who establish a power base on the moon, say the Chinese or the Russians. Obviously, it is a complicated issue.
https://www.calamitypolitics.com/2021/05/16/elon-musks-bitcoin-u-turn/
References
https://nypost.com/2020/08/08/billionaires-who-plan-to-colonize-space-live-in-a-dream-world/
https://lithub.com/the-false-nobility-of-space-billionaires/
