Last week we wrote about Richard Branson and the folly of billionaire-funded space tourism.
Then earlier today Jeff Bezos blasted off into space as well. The Guardian Newspaper is not pleased.
The super-sharp Scott Galloway had a few wonderfully cranky words on the subject, as well.
So why do we really need to send humans into space?
Well, most of the time, we don’t. Robotic space travel works just fine, say, in the case of asteroid mining or gathering data. Not to mention, robots don’t need huge amounts of food, water, oxygen, exercise, gravity, etc. to do their job.
But for all the naysayers, well, as IBM says, a lot of good things came out of the space program so far, and the smart money would predict this trend to continue.
“Camera phones. Wireless headsets. Scratch-resistant lens. CAT scans. The portable computer. They’re just a few of the enduring technologies the space program helped create, and which made their way into improving everyday life on earth.”
But for all the wonderful potential material benefits of space travel, the real need remains psychological. We are human. We need to explore, we need to strive. We need to feel like we’re conquering new worlds and possibilities. If that was not our nature, we’d still be living in caves.
Life, at its most rich, is an experiment. And astronauts, billionaires or otherwise, are there to remind us of that.
