[imagesource:here]

Richard Branson became the first man to travel to space in his own vessel on Sunday (July 11).

At the age of 70, he was also the oldest person to ever travel to space, fulfilling a childhood dream to see Earth from that vantage point.

The British billionaire (albeit only the world’s 589th richest person), along with his crew of five, shot up just a little over 80 kilometres into the atmosphere, experienced only a few minutes of microgravity, and then returned to Earth within an hour.

With that, the “billionaire space race”, as they’ve dubbed it, has been kickstarted into gear and all we mere mortals can do is watch, in awe or in judgement.

Branson’s feat was accomplished nine days before Jeff Bezos, the biggest billionaire of them all, planned to take his own rocket ship, the New Shepard, into space.

Although Bezos’ mission will be a little bit more ambitious, as he is hoping his rocket will take him 62 miles (100 kilometres) away from the Earth’s surface.

This is just a bit further than Branson, and over what is called the Kármán line, the mark set by an international aeronautics body as defining the boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and space.

In fact, whether Branson made it into actual space at all is up for debate as the exact boundaries of space have been contested for years.

But the real debate should be about more critical things; like whether such expeditions offer much scientific value.

The Telegraph says it best:

If the first space race was driven by Cold War competition between superpowers, this iteration is driven largely by private entrepreneurs looking to make money (and, yes, perhaps a dash of male ego, too).

And as with any space race, this one is getting dirty.

If we’re honest, Branson’s space flight was really just an extravagant PR stunt and “not really space exploration” as per Professor Andrew Coates, deputy director of the Mullard Space Science Laboratory at University College London.

But this is totally fine from the perspective of these billionaires whose main goal is just to make commercial space travel a thing in the near future.

At $250 000 (roughly R3,6 million) for a ticket into space abroad one of Branson’s rockets, 600 wealthy would-be citizen astronauts have already booked reservations, with Elon Musk reportedly one of them.

Branson is just that little bit closer to reaching his true vision (not just seeing Earth from space) of a thriving space tourism industry.

Bezos, on the other hand, is setting his sights much further:

Bezos revealed in 2019 that Blue Origin is developing a moon lander that could, he claims, deliver astronauts and cargo to the lunar surface by 2024.

His ultimate aim, described in soaring terms that wouldn’t feel out of place in a sci-fi film, is to build a lunar colony – a new home for our species.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is setting his sights even further than that – to populate Mars with a million humans.

Although, how realistic that is…well, let’s just say the scientific and “real” space community remain sceptical.

NASA’s Perseverance rover and Ingenuity helicopter are the only ventures worth condoning on the Red Planet.

Prof Coates thinks that with these robots, scientists are quite close to finding out whether life has ever existed outside of Earth.

Any answers to this question could completely transform our understanding of the universe, but if the billionaires take their rockets up to space they could “ruin its pristine environment, he says, hampering these scientific efforts”.

He’s also worried that the “delicate chemical balance” in the mesosphere could be polluted by more and more commercial rockets going up.

Shannon Stirone over at The Atlantic is pleading for these space billionaires to “please read the room”:

Leaving Earth right now isn’t just bad optics; it’s almost a scene out of a twisted B-list thriller: The world is drowning and scorching, and two [but really, three] of the wealthiest men decide to … race in their private rocket ships to see who can get to space a few days before the other.

As I said before, perhaps seeing Earth from space will make these billionaires focus on the race to save the planet from the climate change crisis.

[source:telegraph]