Logic students have a name for what is depicted in this cartoon, false dilemma or false dichotomy or something like that. Who cares? It's amusing. It's funny. It's just not true.
If only it were true. If only we could push a button -- or if Bezos or Musk or Buffett or Gates could just write a check -- and end child hunger.
Gazillionaire Jeff Bezos launched himself into space this morning, and returned safely, with his brother, the 18-year old son of a fabulously rich Dutchman, and an 82-year old woman (Wally Funk) who was part of a plan to shame NASA into taking women into space years before Sally Ride rode.
From a technology standpoint, today's Blue Origin launch is kind of primitive: Not only was the flight suborbital, the New Shepard capsule was of the Spam-in-a-can variety that our captured German rocketeers wanted to foist on the original Mercury astronauts (albeit with safeguards that couldn't have been imagined in the 1960s). The four persons launched this morning had no control over any aspect of their flight; they had no controls on their craft at all. The real Alan Shepard and his colleagues used their star power to acquire the power to navigate in their capsules -- which ultimately proved vital to the success of several subsequent manned flights. Go watch The Right Stuff again.
But Jeff Bezos, as you've perhaps read elsewhere, has a sense of history. Naming the suborbital craft New Shepard. Launching on Moon Day -- today is the anniversary of Neil Armstrong's one step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind. Bringing Wally Funk along -- the historic and cultural significance of including a "Mercury 13" aspirant -- who finally gets her astronaut wings today, as the oldest person ever to go to space.
There will be those that criticize today's venture as a stunt, which it was, but it was an inspirational stunt and a true and courageous bet: Bezos did not send up some recycled NASA astronauts; he was daring enough to go himself. Because today's flight says volumes about how safe and reliable spaceflight can be -- where the billionaire funding the venture feels secure enough to put himself on top of the rocket.
Bezos is and will remain a controversial figure, just as is Elon Musk, his main competitor in the corporate space race.
Most of the rest of us will spend years recovering, if we ever do recover, from the financial disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks to his other company, Amazon, Bezos emerged from COVID-19 richer than ever -- even after the world's most costly divorce. And there is the scandal and shame of Amazon employees who have to take government food assistance or insurance subsidies because Amazon doesn't pay enough to live without these benefits. I hope he pays his Blue Origin employees better. I'll bet he does.
Yes, there are grounds on which to roundly criticize Jeff Bezos. In many ways he is a perfect symbol of corporate profits run amuck. He exemplifies the truly appalling wealth gap between himself and his least well paid employees.
And he'll probably wear his astronaut pin everywhere now. Maybe even in the shower. He could well be insufferable.
But stow those criticisms for tomorrow. Today is a day to celebrate the achievements of Bezos and his Blue Origin team. It was a textbook flight. It was, in the understated lexicon of the NASA pioneers, nominal.
I know there are those -- the artist who drew this cartoon, for one, and most of the people who shared it on Facebook, where I saw it -- who will question why anyone goes to space when we have so many problems to solve here. But remember the old days, when you would have to leave your house for work? Were all your problems at home solved first? Maybe you made your bed... but was the living room painted? Was the grass even cut? Why would you leave and do something else when there was still so much to do at home?
Why? Because you had to -- that's why. And we, as a species, have to explore the Universe God gave us. And, today, Jeff Bezos joins Elon Musk as one of those leading the way for all of us. Congratulations, Blue Origin.
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