On Tuesday, Amazon founder and billionaire, Jeff Bezos, successfully completed a ten minute spaceflight with his crew in a rocketship made by his space company, Blue Origin. The crew consisted of Jeff Bezos, now the richest person to launch into space, Mark Bezos (Jeff Bezos’ brother), pilot Wally Funk, who became the oldest person to travel to space at 82 years old, and 18 year old Oliver Daeman, who became the youngest person to travel to space. The rocket, New Shepard, was able to travel over 60 miles above the planet, where the crew experienced “about three minutes of weightlessness”.
Jeff Bezos said he will be using $1 billion from Amazon stock to fund Blue Origin. Blue Origin stated that they will be working towards a future where “people can live and work in space in order to keep the planet clean” by developing sustainable, reusable, low cost designs for launch vehicles. Journalists are calling this the “Billionaire Space race” since other billionaires have also developed advanced space travel technology, such as Richard Branson and his company, Virgin Galactic, and Elon Musk with SpaceX. Referring this as the “Billionaire Space race” reminded me of the original Space Race that took place between the Soviet Union and US during the Cold War, which marked a time of significant advanced space knowledge and aerospace engineering. However, if Blue Origin wants to a create a long lasting impression on the advancement space travel, they still have so much more work to do than just launching the small New Shepard into space for ten minutes.
Even though I personally believe billionaires should not exist in our society due to so many reasons, these aerospace companies founded by billionaires should receive continued funding so that this “Billionaire cold war” results in successful spaceflight tourism technology. However, we must realize that billionaires are not as concerned about breaking the rules because they can always get away with it due to their wealth and power so it is important to remain cautious and monitor the development of these companies. Renowned astrophysicist Neil Degrasse Tyson mentioned that “governments are better suited for long-term exploration, priorities and investment” and I completely agree with this statement. Even if they have adequate funding, private companies have to deal with risks and dangers due to lack of experience. Others are criticizing the usefulness and whether this who space race will actually add any scientific knowledge to our society, and trying to colonize another planet in case Earth becomes uninhabitable should not be the right responses to issues like climate change and diseases, and that they should be focusing on how to make Earth a better living space. Issues like hunger, climate change health care, education, and others should not be ignored when doing these space travel projects. And if all of these advancements in space travel made by billionaires does not end up guaranteeing a solid solution to the problem they are dealing it and just results in little insufficient advancements, then should we continue trusting billionaires in the future?
Works Cited:
Macaya, Melissa, et al. “Live Updates: Jeff Bezos Space Flight.” CNN, Cable News Network, 20 July 2021, www.cnn.com/business/live-news/jeff-bezos-space-flight-07-20-21/index.html.
Roberts, Roxanne. “Billionaires in Space: The Launch of a Dream or Just out-of-This-World Ego?” The Washington Post, WP Company, 18 July 2021, www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/18/billionaire-space-race/.