On July 11th of 2021, Richard Branson flew to Space in Virgin Galactic Spaceship with his crew which began the second Space Race.
Even though we can’t technically call it a space flight, it only flew 80 kilometres above the Kármán Line, and the Space begins at 100 kilometres, which means he couldn’t even see the curvature of the earth.
But that doesn’t mean it was useless; everything in science has always taken humans further. Richard Branson’s flight proved that space travel could be privatised.
But then came July 20th, 11 days after Virgin Galactic launched. Jeff Bezos and Blue origin flew to actual Space, i.e. 100 Km above the Kármán Line.
Space Race Begins
And that began the Space race between the billionaires, and soon the Space will be privatised. With Trillionaire like Elon Musk, who is working on sending Humans on Mars by 2024, it looks like the future of humans won’t be less than a sci-fi movie.
Entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg with his Starshot Project, Robert Bigelow with his Bigelow Aerospace, Paul Allen with Burt Rutan with their Stratolaunch Systems, and many more are jumping in the space race. And soon, the governments of different countries like The USA, China, Israel, and India will be joining the race.
But the question is, what does it mean for ordinary people?
It seems it won’t be making any difference for ordinary people. It will be expensive, as the cost of Blue origin space flight tickets was $ 28 million in auctions.
The ticket price of Virgin Galactic was $ 250,000.
Then, Is it worth it?
If you ask Astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson. It isn’t.
Neil deGrasse Tyson Explains The Billionaire Space Race in the episode of Startalk, his youtube show on science-related stuff, highly recommended.
Why does it exist then?
The earth is getting overcrowded, and if we don’t become a multi-planetary system, it will be the ultimate end of Humankind. The space race between these billionaires is the last hope.
How can it affect Humankind?
Now, you might say that to stop overpopulation and decrease the birth rate, why go to Space?
The thing is, it is a misconception regarding overpopulation.
Increasing the birth rate doesn’t cause overpopulation; instead, it has seen a considerable drop since the ’80s. Instead, the mortality rate has dropped in our centuries.
Due to better healthcare and technology, human life expectancy has risen, causing overpopulation.
But this brings the problem, and if we stop having kids, Homo Sapiens will go extinct. Soon, all the population by the end of this century will be older people.
But at the same time, we can’t have babies because it will cause overpopulation and scarcity of resources.
So one way or the other, humans will become extinct from the face of the earth.
And the only way to stop this from happening is to become a multi-planetary species. And that’s why this Space race between the billionaire will be an essential step in the history of Mankind.
And who is to say, the rise of so many Space tourism Companies will surely drop the prices of the seats, in the end, a business person will always think of profit, something they can’t have if they kept catering to the top 1 per cent.
The future of humanity depends on the next two decades. With Nasa finding water on Mars, SpaceX planning Mars Colonization, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson going beyond the sky, Zuckerberg trying to go to Alpha Centauri Future of humans is in the stars and beyond.
