Opinion about Billionaires’ Private Space Race with a Suggestion for Earth’s True Frontiers

The Wild West Frontier has come to the Space Age where billionaire cowboys flaunt their supersonic weaponry hanging from holsters of extreme wealth studded with profligate excess. A few weeks ago, their high noon duel was livestreamed to see who is first or farthest or the biggest bang. Or the reason why Virgin Galactic shares soared by beating Jeff Bezos by 9 days.

And the media excitedly streamed these pioneers of interplanetary travel hoping to set the way for more extravagant ticketed passengers in the guise of visionary thinking. Or is any kind of private scientific advancement another means to enhance their private fortunes? There is no historical significance here other than to the super elite with money to rocket into self-glory.

On July 11/21, Richard Branson, an English billionaire, touted as a true pioneer, launched his spacecraft 50 miles high to the edge of space as a potential business venture to market passenger ticket sales to be estimated as much as 500,000 dollars. His venture called Virgin Galactic had a stock price worth more than 80% so far this year in anticipation of this progress toward commercial service for space travel.

In my opinion, calling them brave pioneers does injustice to the true down-to-earth people who opened the Wild West territory. They hitched up canvas wagons to teams of horses and bumped their way through ruts, storms and ordeals with the hopes of a better life to be hewed out through hard work and sacrifice. They opened the new frontier to basic provisional settlements, relay stations, stores, small towns, churches, schools and eventually cities.

Early pioneers were not tourists looking for comfort and self- gratification feeding their ego to show off their extravagant singularity. It was not a brief joy ride into space but survival with skills and fortitude in inhospitable landscapes to believe in a better future with collective pride and communal achievement. Therein lies our history.

So what do you think? It would not be a down-to-earth person who would climb aboard one of these galactic spaceships at the cost of hundred thousands of dollars to feel weightless for 3 minutes if their conscience is equally weightless about such money flagrantly shown off in a society suffering from so much deprivation.

How could space tourism possibly benefit humanity’s survival?

Imagine if any one person has 28 million dollars to spend for a few minutes of breathless awe to see the planet from 50 miles away. What else would they see or contemplate beyond breath taking geography as another vision of Earth’s crucible among the towers of smoke and furious currents of clouds? Maybe such an overview would be the right time to think about how to deal with catastrophic climate changes, how to improve earth’s food supply or or how to deal with a terrible pandemic now mutating into an endemic with newly formulated but mandated vaccine diplomacy. Humanitarian issues might cross their horizon such as homelessness, children’s poverty, environmental collapse, cultural ignorance, economic instability, and broken social contracts.

28 million dollars to help remediate these problems would be beneficial with a historical significance.

The Earth’s True Frontiers for Everyone

In my opinion, the point is that the Internet Revolution has also created a true Wild West Frontier with so many new unexplored interfaces and challenges, physically and mentally. So many people find themselves thrown into this cultural shock wave or borderless morass without preparation or understanding … sink or swim with hashtags. The tragedy is young people with adolescent development who are hyperbolized into adult situations … a mimicry that lasts a lifetime.

Spend some resources for more research and development focused on social media navigation and control for self-identity and success...

Develop new educational programs for young people about life skills in the Virtual Internet Age to better cope with the voracious, avaricious social media:

...Integrate the educational system with fair-minded internet connectivity

...Learn to resolve conflicts when both sides can discuss equal rights

...Practice rules for fiscal responsibility such as credit card interests

...Discuss critical thinking skills such as how to trust but verify first

...Deal with current topics as well as the foundation of historical perspectives

For sure, some people may think our planet is screwed up enough but blasting into orbit searching for better colonization in case an asteroid hits Earth is wanton speculation. Exploiting commercial suborbital space will not build consumer demand for space travel except intrigue egos of other rarefied millionaires.

Just imagine, if you had $5.5 billion dollars (Jeff Bezos' cost) to spend after 4 minutes of effort, the kind of extraordinary humanitarian services that would be possible such as saving millions of people from starvation. Why not take another 4 minutes of flight time and help to vaccinate the world against COVID-19?

The remainder of 52 minutes (one hour) could be put in your pocket, Mr. Bezos, for personal billionaire splurges like a 1.2 billion super yacht made with a smaller yacht to hold the helicopter to ride alongside. Perhaps you may find some unpolluted oceans.

Meanwhile, there is no joy for humanity on real Earth below, with current environmental problems creating tragic disasters accelerating into the future. Too many adolescents are suffering depression, anxiety and behavioural disorders that will impair both physical and mental health well into adulthood. Suicide is the fourth leading cause of death among 15-19 year-olds. How is it possible to ignore the international refugee crisis facing violence, persecution and human rights violations or to resolve the reasons why people are driven from their homes.

In deference to Richard Branson, he has pledged to give away half his fortune (estimated at 5.4 billion) to charities currently counting at least 31 different beneficiaries. He is certainly to be applauded for his corporate social responsibility and belief that businesses will supplant nonprofits as leading social-change agents.

However, in retrospection, the challenge remains in his statement that his company stands at “the vanguard of a new commercial space industry, which is set to open space to humankind and change the world for good.”

Mr. Branson, how will humankind be better off by flying around in space for a few minutes with hundreds of thousands dollars paid to you? Will humans find social justice and morality there?

There is no joy for humanity tonight when outer space matters with celebratory champagne more than Earth.

Annemarie Berukoff

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/jeff-bezos-space-flight-money-better-uses/