This week, rocket firm Blue Origin despatched six ladies to the sting of area, the primary time an all-female crew made the journey since Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova accomplished a three-day solo mission greater than six many years in the past.
The flight included a pop star, a TV journalist, an aerospace engineer, a movie producer and a bioastronautics analysis scientist-turned-activist. Additionally on board was Lauren Sanchez, a businesswoman, journalist, creator, philanthropist and the fiancée of Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest particular person and founding father of Blue Origin. The roster had “the power of an American Woman doll assortment,” as The New York Instances’ Amanda Hess put it.
The outing triggered a heated debate about whether or not the 11-minute flight was a courageous show of feminism or a significant publicity stunt. (Singer-turned-passenger Katy Perry telling Elle that she was going to “put the ass in astronaut” didn’t assist the discourse.)
Greater than anything although, the episode was a distraction. It achieved little past diverting consideration away from the truth that whereas ladies in a rocket have been dominating the information cycle, the people who find themselves actually making an attempt to overcome area are billionaire males.
There may be in fact Amazon.com Inc. founder and government chairman Bezos, who sees humanity’s enlargement past Earth as a solution to escape a “civilization of stasis” and the confines of the Earth’s restricted assets. Elon Musk needs to colonize Mars and switch people right into a multi-planetary species by means of his firm SpaceX. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic has the extra modest purpose of selling area tourism.
The space-billionaires membership is rising, too. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt lately purchased a controlling stake in Relativity Area; he’s now additionally operating the startup, which goals to compete with SpaceX. And crypto billionaire Jed McCaleb, who was behind the Mt. Gox Bitcoin alternate, is making an attempt to construct the world’s first industrial area station. “Individuals want a brand new frontier,” he informed Bloomberg Information final month. “In any other case, issues begin to really feel very zero sum.”
Why are a few of the richest males on the earth so obsessive about area? I’m removed from the primary to pose this query. In 2021, when Bezos and Branson rode on their respective rocket ships 9 days aside, Salon.com identified the correlation between wealth and a need to overcome area. “Are they tired of Earth? Or is it a symbolic, masculine energy play, an illustration of their dominance?” author Nicole Karlis requested.
One psychologist informed her that wealth and energy could make an individual relate to the world in a extra self-centered approach — that dwelling in a cocoon of privilege makes it harder to see what’s taking place round them.
However in 2025, a few of the extraordinarily wealthy do appear conscious of the smoldering taking place right here on this planet: the rising social and political unrest, rising earnings inequality, local weather change and excessive climate occasions, geopolitical uncertainty and the ever-present chance of one other pandemic. To arrange for it, they’re constructing bunkers to bury themselves deep within the floor. They’re exploring the potential for colonizing the ocean. And quite than make investments the majority of their assets in fixing life down right here, they’re hatching an exit technique that may finally propel those that can afford it into area.
Whereas the area billionaires could package deal their exploits as furthering humanity and science, their ventures are additionally one other solution to earn money in a comparatively new and unregulated area. However lofty guarantees about making area accessible for all make for higher messaging than the fact of rocket startups’ benefiting from authorities contracts. In an actual transfer of press savvy, Blue Origin has gotten extra consideration and buzz for the design of the flight fits for its all-female lineup than it has for the almost $2.4 billion it was awarded earlier this month by the Division of Protection. (SpaceX made out even higher, touchdown a deal value $5.9 billion.)
The tremendous rich who’ve ridden in their very own rockets have come again to Earth effervescent in regards to the magnificence and the fragility of the planet we reside on. However it says rather a lot about how disconnected they’re from life on the bottom if that takes a visit to the sting of area to comprehend.
