BILLIONAIRES IN SPACE!

Richard Branson will be shot into space this weekend. He will be followed a few days later by fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos. Many people don't want them to come back.

THIS WEEKEND, all going to plan, billionaire Richard Branson of the Virgin Group will be shot into space. He will be followed, some nine days later, by Jeff Bezos of Amazon - who is now struggling as only the second richest person in the world with an estimated worth of $186 billion.

They will temporarily depart Earth as the representatives of an economic system that has ransacked the planet for the benefit of people like Branson and Bezos while leaving 250 million people living in extreme poverty. At the same time that economic system is rapidly eating up our environment and our resources in the name of profit. Branson and Bezos are only astronomically wealthy because tens of millions of people are astronomically poor. Branson and Bezos are only astronomically wealthy because their economic system threatens to send the planet over the cliff.

Its hardly surprising that nearly 150,000 people have signed a petition on change.org demanding that Jeff Bezos be kept in space permanently. Says the petition : 'Billionaires should not exist...in earth, or in space, but should they decide the latter, they should stay there.'  Fair enough.

Its easy to assume that Branson and Bezos are simply engaged in some massive game of one-upmanship for the benefit of the corporate media, especially since both camps have been taking potshots at each other. While Branson has bragged about beating Bezos into space, Bezos says that Branson isn't really flying into space because he's not going above the Karman line. The Karman line is 62 miles above the Earth and marks the end of Earth's atmosphere and the beginning of outer space itself.

But, amidst all the tubthumping, the venal logic of capitalism remains. Venture capitalists have sunk nearly $5 billion into the private space industry in the first half of 2021 alone. Over the past decade the private space industry has sucked up nearly $190 billion. The Branson and Bezos flights are the promotional face of an industry that, if the flights are successful, will be the recipient of increased investor interest with Branson and Bezos being two of the chief beneficiaries. Conversely, if anything catastrophic was to occur, that could possibly sink the private space industry for years to come.

We can well imagine Branson and Bezos looking down on Earth and rubbing their hands in glee, as they think of all that lovely dosh heading their way. They are unlikely to be thinking of astronomer Carl Sagan's observations in his book Pale Blue Dot. Voyager 1, on the fringe of our solar system in February 1990, turned around for one last look at its home planet.  Wrote Sagan:

'Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experince. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.'