State of Affairs

We live in the most interesting time. Over the course of the last two weeks the world watched as people – not scientists, just regular people with extraordinary wealth – blast off to space. Now – having just entered the dawn of my 23rd year on this planet I can imagine how much pride the whole world felt as American Hero Neil Armstrong blasted off to the moon on July 20, 1969; I can honestly say that I didn’t feel proud of either Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos.

I appreciate very much that Spaceport America was built in New Mexico, and I appreciate that Richard Branson chose the United States as the country to support his ambitious space program. I appreciate the intelligence of both Branson and Bezos for having the know-how and gumption to build rockets. My largest concern, and I do have many, is this: if Bezos wanted to take a teenager to space so badly, why couldn’t it at least have been an American?

I do not like that Bezos’ company is selling their rides to space and is already taking bids but won’t disclose how much a ticket to space would be. That’s the equivalent of saying, “most of you are too poor to ever afford this incredible luxury,” and while that may be a true statement, the point is made even more clear by the fallic shape of the rocket.

Branson didn’t use a rocket like that, NASA doesn’t use rockets shaped like that, SpaceX doesn’t use rockets shaped like that. Why did Bezos make his rocket look like that? Did he do it to flaunt his “stuff” while also saying “look how much money I have!”

I have a problem with people who have extraordinary wealth and don’t use it in thanksgiving or charity for the people around them. I have a problem with people who have extraordinary wealth and don’t use it to fix their nation’s ailing infrastructure. I have a problem with people who have extraordinary wealth and don’t use it for the betterment of their society. Instead, millions of dollars were wasted on this greed race.

The good news to this billionaire space race is that the ability to colonize the stars is suddenly probable. As the Earth becomes more unstable as a result of climate change and the places that humans can inhabit shrink, we will need a frontier to expand. Space is not our final frontier, because humanity has a future, it may be challenging but humanity will always find a way to survive and eventually thrive. Millions of years of evolution led humanity to this point, to the point where, in my lifetime, humans will be colonizing other planets.

The future is exciting, I only wish we had American Heroes that we could look up to like in the 20th Century.