In Ireland: A Novel, Frank Delaney notes that “any time a great man tries to do a wonderful thing, lesser men will try to stop him.” It was inevitable that when Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos announced they would be rocketing into space on their own commercial space vehicles, resentment and carping would be the order of the day. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders summarized the critical perspective by tweeting, “Here on Earth, in the richest country on the planet, half our people live paycheck to paycheck, people are struggling to feed themselves, struggling to see a doctor — but hey, the richest guys in the world are off in outer space!”
Branson reached space last week on Virgin Galactic’s spaceplane named Unity. In doing so, he not only fulfilled his own dreams but also ushered in a long-awaited new era of personal space exploration. Branson just barely beat out Bezos, who is set to duplicate the feat in his own New Shepard space capsule on Tuesday. Completing the billionaire triumvirate is Elon Musk, whose SpaceX Dragon spacecraft will be flying commercial passengers to orbit in September.
