- Billionaires are engaging in a trend on race to space and taking costly flights to explore commercial opportunities in the field.
- Bill Gates appeared on television to voice his opinion regarding this trend and took a dig at Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos on their recent space ventures.
- Gates claimed his counterparts need to focus their attention and resources to solve the problems left on Earth instead.
Microsoft founder and currently the fifth richest man on Earth, Bill Gates made an appearance on television last wednesday. Gates gave a public interview after a considerable time while maintaining a relatively low profile for the past few months. This comes amid his relatively publicised divorce with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-founder, Melinda Gates and the viral photos of him having dinner with controversial figure, Jeffery Epstein who was convicted of sex trafficking.
Gates appeared on a special Climate Night edition of “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on Wednesday via the platform of a Zoom call. During the interview, James Corden thanked Gates for being one among the few billionaires on the planet who’s not trying to escape on a spaceship. This comes as the Microsoft founder and currently the fifth richest man on Earth, Bill Gates made an appearance on television last wednesday. Gates gave a public interview after a considerable time while maintaining a relatively low profile for the past few months. This comes amid his relatively publicised divorce with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation co-founder, Melinda Gates and the viral photos of him having dinner with controversial figure, Jeffery Epstein who was convicted of sex trafficking.
Gates appeared on a special Climate Night edition of “The Late Late Show with James Corden” on Wednesday via the platform of a Zoom call. During the interview, James Corden thanked Gates for being one among the few billionaires on the planet who’s not trying to escape on a spaceship. This comes as the Although Musk himself hasn’t been to space, yet he continues to forward his visions instituting humans as a space faring civilization through his company. SpaceX recently made history by launching the Inspiration4 mission which sent a group of four untrained civilian astronauts to space. The crew set off to orbit the sun on the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule for a total of three days before splashing down at the Atlantic ocean with the goal of raising funds for the St. Jude’s Children Research Hospital. SpaceX is also continuously working in collaboration with NASA on the Artemis project that aims to send a VIPER rover to the south pole of the moon to explore lunar water resources.
Bill Gates’ Message
Gates, not shirking away from the stage, voiced his opinion with utmost clarity. He criticised his counterparts Bezos and Musk for their attempts to explore space through various schemes, whilst there were still many problems yet to be solved on Earth. He further went on to say that through his numerous foundations he aims to focus his attention and resources towards eliminating various debilitating diseases associated with public health such as Malaria and AIDS(Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome).
The public opinion
It has become very apparent that with this current fascination and preoccupation of billionaires with space, their attention has shifted away from humanitarian efforts required on their home planet. The general population is opinionated against these overpriced space exploration schemes with news of Musk’s plans to colonise Mars by 2024 and Bezos goal of offloading carbon heavy industries onto other planets making rounds.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called out billionaires for spending billions on space travel, while millions of the population on Earth go hungry every night. At the time of their space flights, both billionaires Bezos and Branson received criticism, as people called for the men to pay higher taxes than the public. Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed Bezos for the spaceflight after reports of non payment of taxes between 2006-2018 by the Amazon founder.
