Spaced Out

By the time you read this, the founder and former CEO of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, will likely have been to space aboard a rocket built by one of his side-hustles, Blue Origin. The venture, slated for July 20th (the 52nd anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing no less) marks a culmination of two decade's work which should see the richest man on Earth become the richest man in orbit.

Though he'd be unlikely to admit it, the experience may have been somewhat tarnished by the fact fellow rich guy Richard Branson beat him to it... by 9 days. Launching from New Mexico aboard the Virgin Galactic Unity 22 space plane on July 11th, the perma-smiling Virgin boss got to experience zero gravity for a few minutes whilst the rest of us earthbound losers finally got to witness the effects of weightlessness on a dyed-blond mullet (alas Peter Stringfellow never made it to the final frontier...) Though not the first “average joe” in space, Branson's foray marked the first high-profile manned flight of the new commercial space race, as Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk's SpaceX all seek to redefine off-world travel for a commercial market. It's also the most out-of-this-world thing he's done since Virgin Care sued the NHS for £82 million for not awarding them a lucrative contract. Ahhhhh, lovely, smiley, man of the people Richard Branson.

Space is never not impressive and the live streamed event was no doubt inspiring to many, but the cynical couldn't help but see it for the billionaire pissing contest it resembled. It's not unprecedented. In the mid oughties, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen and the CEO of software giant Oracle, Larry Ellison further exercised their well documented, intense rivalry and fragile masculinity through the commissioning of private super yachts. Once Allen had ordered his 416-ft Octopus, Ellison, presumably excited by the thrill of competition, got a hull extension, engorging his.. ahem... Rising Sun from 387 to 452-ft. Fittingly, he didn't hold onto the $270 million vessel for long, apparently losing interest / throwing a tanty when the Crown Prince of Dubai (a place where men routinely attempt to out-phallic one another with ever-bigger superstructures) flopped out his record-breaking 525-ft Platinum. Ellison soon sold his floating metaphor on to another middle aged, white male (presumably not on Gumtree). Oh boys.

Though the stated goals may be loftier than just “popping corks and banging chicks in Monaco”, the billionaire space race still smacks of egocentricity and a level of tone-deafness to the world around us exemplified by the very notion of a billionaire.

To quote Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who probably doesn't own a boat but kicks all kinds of ass: “No one ever makes a billion dollars. You take a billion dollars” As we reckon with a global pandemic and ongoing climate crisis which only serve to exacerbate the heinous levels of economic inequality we already experience, it seems gross to idolise such accumulation and ostentatious displays of wealth by the few. To hoard more money than you can ever spend whilst people starve around you is not just insensitive, it's pathological.

In 2017 and 2018, any one of more than 100 million Amazon Prime users (then – it's double now and i'm one of them) paid more for their annual subscription than the entire company paid in federal income Tax. In truth, you'd pay more for a penny sweet than they paid in federal income tax because they paid sweet fuck all. In fact, despite yearly income in the double figure billions, through clever use of tax credits, deductions and incentives, Amazon received federal tax refunds totalling $266 million – that should cover the accountant bills! In 2019, there was progress as Bezos's baby relinquished a crippling.... 1.2% tax – I'm sure they'll survive. In fact, thanks to the pandemic shaking things up, the company have seen profits grow by 220% and put Bezos back at the top of the rich list after his $38 billion divorce settlement left him all but destitute. Some people get a fancy new haircut after a break-up. That's not really an option for Bezos, so evidently he picked going to space instead.

Musk's M.O. With SpaceX is ultimately to establish “alternatives” to Earth on Mars, should something cataclysmic happen to this planet. It's hard not to feel like the cataclysm could come in some large part from Bezos and co who were discovered in June to have been destroying upwards of 130,000 items per week from just one of many, many fulfilment centres in the UK. Mobiles, Macbooks, home tech, 20,000 unused face masks....The majority of these items were brand new, still packaged, just unsold or returned unwanted. Amazon's business model determines it's cheaper to dump them than store them or redistribute them more responsibly.

Meanwhile hungry kids across England are home learning on mum's mobile because they can't afford the type of laptop Amazon throws away. Though the figures are disturbing, whistleblowers say this is simply the company norm, yet time and again responsibility for saving the planet is put on the individual, generally non-billionaire not to use plastic fucking straws. No doubt there are solutions to Earth's environmental woes right here a bit of that billionaire cash could find but that's just not as sexy as reaching for the stars.

But just because you can leave Earth's atmosphere, it doesn't mean you can rise above playground mentality and the three big dogs have exchanged some thinly veiled public attempts to undermine each other which have merely served to undermine the grandeur of what they claim to be aiming for.
Thankfully, the general, TAX PAYING public have responded in typically winning manner, with more than 160,000 people signing a petition to refuse Bezos re-entry to Earth once he's pissed off out of it. Meanwhile, a pic of himself Sir Branson shared just hours before his voyage generated arguably more interest in the state of his dated kitchen cupboards than the fact he was about to launch into the ether. Nothing like a bit of good old-fashioned cupboard-based piss-taking to clip your wings.
It didn't stop him returning with this vom-inducing rhetoric.
“Imagine a world where people of all ages, all backgrounds from anywhere, of any gender, or any ethnicity, have equal access to space.”

Let's start with running water, hot food and living wages before we “all” jump in rockets.


Fucking Billionaires.