The Billionaires' Space Club

theodp writes Silicon sultans are the new robber barons, writes The Economist, adding that "they have been diversifying into businesses that have little to do with computers, while egotistically proclaiming that they alone can solve mankind's problems, from aging to space travel." Over at Slate, NYU journalism prof Charles Seife is less-than impressed with The Billionaires' Space Club. "It's an old trick," begins Seife. "Multimillionaires regularly try to spin acts of crass ego gratification as selfless philanthropy, no matter how obviously self-serving. They jump out of balloons at the edge of the atmosphere, take submarines to the bottom of the ocean, or shoot endangered animals on safari, all in the name of science and exploration. The more recent trend is billionaires making fleets of rocket ships for private space exploration. What makes this one different is that the public actually seems to buy the farce." Seife goes on to argue that "neither [Elon] Musk's nor [Richard] Branson's goals really seem to break new ground, despite all the talk of exploration."

Comments

Re:RAH had this in the 50's

[rtb61]

Yeah, right up until the corporate bonus boosting short cut sends an asteroid crashing into the earth instead of putting it in orbit. The brutal reality is by far the majority of get super rich schemes burn up, the rapid rise burning up on re-entry as it crashes back to earth. I trust corporations a whole lot less in fact an order of magnitude less than the government. In fact the main reason not to trust government currently relates directly to the corporate ownership of government.