Shoot For the Stars?

Bernie Saunders (Chair of the US Senate Budget Committee) is incensed that Congress is considering legislation to provide a $10bn bailout for 'poor' Jeff Bezos (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/22/jeff-bezos-space-elon-musk-billionaires-bernie-sanders). Bezo's Blue Origin space company lost a competitive bid to Elon Musk's SpaceX. Bezos and Musk have a combined worth of $450bn but neither pay real taxes. Saunders notes that their private companies use NASA facilities, free of charge, to launch their satellites into orbit. As he points out, the risks have been socialised (paid for in US taxes) wheras the profits are privatised (they go to the billionaires). Saunders clearly thinks that the space economy ought to benefit of the tax payer. It's estimated that, over the next 8 years, this space economy will to triple to $1.4tn. The 'loot' will include income from space tourism. Saunders ought to be concerned that, the emissions from this activity will make limiting climate change impossible. It seems weird that the mega-rich are allowed to push space tourism to get even richer. What happened to the concept of the polluter paying? Saunders also notes that the 'space cowboys' could enrich themselves further, by grabbing asteroids with rare and useful metals. This is eerily like the activity of Mark Rylance's character in 'Don't Look Up'. Rylance played Peter Isherwell, a US high tech billionaire. His character was intent on mining the approaching asteroid for rare metals, rather than destroying it. I thought this was a bit 'over the top'. Apparently, not so!