Last Friday, in the newest volley in the Billionaire Space Race, Richard Branson revealed that hell be flying to low Earth orbit on July 11, 9 days prior to Jeff Bezos planned go to. While some plutocrat stans cheered for their selected business overlord, numerous on Twitter responded with renewed outrage that not one but three billionaires have actually handled to hoard sufficient wealth to begin their own individual space programs. For all their wealth, billionaires do not have the power to make area a more comfy place to be than Earth. When you understand the science, it becomes clear that the “billionaire space race” is just that– absolutely nothing more than a pissing contest between egotistical burglar barons. Our billionaires will not discover anything up there but an entire lot of time to sit with the gaping void in their hearts, which space certainly wont fill, while forcibly holding their asscheeks to a suctioning toilet seat, since theyre constipated as hell from astronaut food.

What caught me by surprise was the variety of folks who seem to believe that Musk, Bezos and Branson are trying to “escape” the devastations of environment modification for a life in space– and might even be successful in doing so. The idea that the rich will live comfortably high above the Earth while the world becomes an uninhabitable wasteland has actually been promoted by motion pictures like “Elysium” and “WALL-E.” The New York Times sustained this fantasy back in 2018 with a story about Axioms proposed high-end space hotel, under the heading “The Rich are Planning to Leave this Wretched Planet.”.

Last Friday, in the current volley in the Billionaire Space Race, Richard Branson announced that hell be flying to low Earth orbit on July 11, nine days prior to Jeff Bezos planned go to. While some plutocrat stans cheered for their chosen corporate overlord, many on Twitter reacted with restored outrage that not one but 3 billionaires have actually handled to hoard adequate wealth to start their own personal space programs. The news landed particularly viciously after a week in which numerous individuals died from a record-shattering heat dome in Canada and the Pacific Northwest and the ocean captured on fire..

But as a scifi author and the partner of a NASA flight controller, let me assure you that the abundant escaping the earth for a space paradise is only a trope in fiction– at least in our life times..
The most comfortable living circumstance weve ever designed above Earths orbit is on the International Space Station. The ISS is an extraordinary task of engineering– one that the combined space companies of the U.S., Russia, Europe, Japan and Canada have actually been working on for 23 years now. Life on the ISS is anything but elegant..
Around half a dozen astronauts live up there at any given time, bouncing around a narrow tube with roomies they didnt pick and who cant properly shower for months on end. The wifi is sluggish. The food is not Michelin starred, to say the least. Their sleeping scenario is similar to a floating casket. And pooping includes a complicated procedure in a port-o-potty where the door is a plastic drape and everything floats.
Astronauts time is micromanaged by a group of professionals on the ground. Unlike future space-tourists imagined schedules, much of their time is invested working on actual science, however a fantastic deal is dedicated to simple survival. Space-dwellers should exercise a minimum of 2 hours a day to keep their bones from relying on goo. Due to the fact that space desires to kill you, they spend a load of time studying systems and carrying out repair work on devices that frequently breaks. Outside the area station, there are micro-meteoroid strikes, severe temperature fluctuations, the cold welding of metal parts that occurs in a vacuum, and atomic oxygen/ultraviolet deterioration. Inside, things often break from age and consistent use– fans, workout devices, and, tragically, the toilets..
The ISS team is only able to endure up there at all since multiple nations use thousands of brilliant, highly-trained engineers and medical professionals and astrophysicists and computer system experts whose full-time job is keeping them alive and the ISS functioning. When something does break, these groups scramble to develop repairs. And those repairs– lord, are they laborious..
I utilized to believe my spouses job was so glamorous, all socializing with astronauts in Mission Control. During this pandemic year, hes mostly worked from home, and I have glimpsed the schematics and overheard bits of conferences. Its like an IKEA furnishings assembly handbook fell for a PhD-level mathematics book– that level of tediousness..
Every time some crucial system breaks outside the station, astronauts have to study these schematics and procedures for hours to learn how to fix the damaged thing. Thats five to eight hours of tough, tiresome labor that typically leaves super-fit astronauts trembling with muscle tiredness.
Scott Kelly was the first U.S. astronaut to invest a consecutive year in area on one objective. He d invested his adult life preparing to be an astronaut, and still he found it physically and emotionally grueling to be up there for simply one year.
Even if Axiom gets their area hotel developed, its going to be confined and harmful, and when the toilet breaks, somebodys going to have to clean up the drifting shit. For all their wealth, billionaires do not have the power to make area a more comfy place to be than Earth.
And what about Musks imagine a colony on Mars, or a minimum of the Moon? Those are astronomically less practical. The further away from Earth youre attempting to sustain life in space, the more difficult it gets. And while they have the advantage of gravity, the surface area of the Moon and Mars are covered with a grainy regolith that gums up mechanisms. NASA is presently working on sending out astronauts to survive on the Moon as part of the Artemis mission. Theyve been working on Artemis strategies for years and will continue to prepare for years more before sending the very first team to sleep on the Moon– for a week or more, max. No, there will be no Moon-a-Lago, not to mentioned a Mars-a-Lago, in our lifetimes..
Regardless of Musks lofty claims of making mankind “a multi-planetary species,” thats method, way beyond the world of current technical possibility. And his claim is particularly absurd, thinking about that in order to produce the wealth that sustains billionaires like Musk, were rapidly destroying the one planet we can live on– Earth. If we do not reverse the environmental and societal deterioration caused by worldwide commercialism, the ISS may end up being the peak of human space expedition.
When you comprehend the science, it ends up being clear that the “billionaire space race” is just that– nothing more than a pissing contest between egotistical robber barons. Branson and Bezos arent investing their cash to forward science or broaden the bounds of human possibility. Theyre doing it to be the first rich man to bounce around uselessly up there, as opposed to NASA astronauts who, once again, do science. And after they bounce around uselessly, theyre hoping to trick more of their obscenely abundant buddies into doing the very same.
When you understand that area tourist is funded with the hoarded wealth of billions of workers who are struggling to survive here on Earth, the pointlessness of it all is specifically despicable. The area tourist industry will be constructed with the earnings off supply chains that work individuals to death-by-exhaustion, actually oppress people, and are rapidly ruining the future habitability of our planet.
Thats a quite bleak dystopia. We ought to really consider taking our wealth back from billionaires before they construct it..
But if we stop working, join me in enjoying the schadenfreude. Area tourist will inevitably suck. Our billionaires wont discover anything up there however a great deal of time to sit with the open space in their hearts, which space definitely wont fill, while forcibly holding their asscheeks to a suctioning toilet seat, due to the fact that theyre constipated as hell from astronaut food.
The world is burning, and billionaires are probably the individuals most accountable. At least they will not be able to escape to some other, much better location. They will die and live (alone, like everybody) on this beautiful, precious, one-in-a-gazillion planet.