When Jeff Bezos was soundly beaten by Elon Musk to be NASA's partner in getting back to the Moon, Bezos pivoted to space tourism as the future of his aerospace company. He recently auctioned off a seat on Blue Origin's first commercial flight for $28 million.
To be clear, that's $28 million for a 10-minute flight, 3 minutes of which you could argue occurs in "space." The identity of the winning bidder remains a secret, but I'd be shocked if it wasn't someone who used the publicity to hawk something like plant-based meat to the public. "It's the future of meat!"
Bezos, who will step down as Amazon’s chief executive officer 15 days before the flight, posted on Instagram: “Ever since I was five years old, I’ve dreamed of traveling to space. On July 20th, I will take that journey with my brother. The greatest adventure, with my best friend.”
The trip comes amid increasing competition between the some of the world’s wealthiest men. Blue Origin is vying with Elon Musk’s Space Exploration Technologies and the Richard Branson-backed Virgin Galactic Holdings to offer trips to space.
Bezos may be out of Branson's league, but he can't go toe to toe with Musk, who combines the wealth of the former with the charisma of the latter. I've been critical of Musk's Twitter shenanigans and his reliance on subsidies to keep Tesla and SolarCity afloat, but he has moxy, and you need that to send men into space (in addition to billions of dollars). He also understands what dogged the space program after Apollo: a lack of excitement. More than all of SpaceX's innovation in the field of VTOL rockets, the "Starman" stunt renewed many people's interest in space exploration.
Bezos's sub-orbital stunt is 10 years too late, and he doesn't have the charisma to make it interesting. Personally reaching space before Musk pales in comparison to what Musk will accomplish in the next 3 years. Feel free to look past this nothingburger to Artemis 1, an unmanned version of Apollo 8, which will be as much a test of NASA's wildly overpriced SLS rocket as of the Orion spacecraft. Or you can watch Russia's future space partner build their own space station in low Earth orbit.
The launch of #China’s first manned mission to its #space station. It’s pretty incredible what humans can do. The rocket’s chief designer told me after so much work, she was sad to see it go... but ‘thrilled’ that for 10 key minutes ‘it did its duty’.
— Janis Mackey Frayer (@janisfrayer) June 17, 2021
This was my view.@NBCNews pic.twitter.com/ofDNV8XXU5
WATCH: China’s Shenzhou 12 docking to Tiangong Space Station Core Cabin Module
— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) June 17, 2021
pic.twitter.com/mvi82lyKEI
As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like science fiction, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.
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