The new space race is no longer a competition between countries but about the adventures of three billionaires obsessed with going to space and satisfying their ego, vanity and competitive interests.
The three space musketeers bring a collective net worth of almost $400 billion to their out-of-this-world side hustles.
Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic/Virgin Orbit, on July 11, 2021 was the first in space and plans to transport passengers to floating hotels or labs, and provide supersonic transcontinental flights.
Ironically, in a 2014 episode from The Simpsons, an astronaut in a spaceship closely resembled Branson. His company Virgin Atlantic agreed, tweeting “The Simpsons predicted it…” and a clapping hands emoji.
Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, Blue Origin, was the next to go up in a rocket. His plans are for space tourism.
Both these men are competing against Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s company SpaceX who has a vision to colonise Mars. “The human species could be wiped out and we need a backup plan on Mars or somewhere else,” he said. Bezos shares the same worries.
It is very convenient for these wealthy entrepreneurs to ignore the wealth gap; the divide between them and the average person.
After his flight to space Branson posted on social media: “Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds from anywhere, of any gender, or any ethnicity, have equal access to space.”
It seems Branson didn’t take into account that a $250,000 ticket on one of Galactic’s flights is out of reach for the average person.
American Senator Bernie Sanders tweeted: “Here on Earth, in the richest country on the planet, half our people live paycheck to paycheck, people are struggling to feed themselves, struggling to see a doctor — but hey, the richest guys in the world are off in outer space! Yes. It’s time to tax the billionaires.”
Daniel Porter from the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality said: “We found that it would take the majority of Americans decades to amass enough money to even consider going to space.”
Furthermore, it is unforgivable that the three billionaires are spending their vast fortunes on their self-interests rather than solving earthly problems such as, poverty, hunger, health care, and education.
And clearly they are also ignoring the effect of the space war on emissions.
Jessica Dallas, a senior policy adviser at the New Zealand Space Agency, wrote: “While there are a number of environmental impacts resulting from the launch of space vehicles, the depletion of stratospheric ozone is the most studied and most immediately concerning.”
And associate professor of physical geography at University College London Eloise Marais believes that a new private space industry cultivating tourism and popular use could come with vast environmental costs. A huge amount of fuel is required to launch rockets into space. Kerosene and liquid hydrogen are among the fuels currently in use and cause different substances to be emitted into the upper atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, water, chlorine and other chemicals.
"For one long-haul plane flight it’s one to three tons of carbon dioxide [per passenger],” says Marais. For one rocket launch 200-300 tonnes of carbon dioxide are split between 4 or so passengers, according to Marais. And as the industry grows the impact will increase.
She says that the carbon dioxide produced can stay there for two to three years and even water produced from liquid hydrogen can have warming impacts.
Even closer to the ground, the ozone layer can be destroyed by the combination of elements from burning fuels.
In attempting to “reach for the stars” the billionaires clearly have an ethical responsibility to consider the impact on the environment.
Money used for space technology could be more wisely invested into improving the planet, looking for solutions to global warming and working towards the fulfillment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.
One sure thing is that The Simpsons’ psychic powers are pretty impressive having predicted several historical events.
Let’s see if their prediction of World War III and a deadly robot takeover comes true. Get your doomsday bunker ready.
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