Weird-Ass Billionaires Are a Gift to NASA
It’s not just that they’re rich -- it’s also that they’re weird
Billionaires are weird. I don’t understand how Jeff Bezos can be clever enough to become the richest man in the world but also dense enough to show up to a major public relations event in a cowboy hat that gave him a serious Wyatt Derp vibe. Dumb clothes can undermine a historic moment; we’d remember if Charles Lindbergh had landed in Paris wearing a Blossom hat and vampire teeth, or if Chuck Yeager had broken the sound barrier in a “Born 2 Fart” t-shirt. It would have lessened the momentousness of the achievement.
There’s also the unmissable fact that the rocket Blue Origins (Bezos’ company) sent to space could not possibly have looked more like a dick. There’s a fucking pipe running down the middle that looks like a vein! It’s absolutely insane -- it’s as if their goal was to build a four-story tall dick, and then in the latter stages, decided “hey, let’s also make it a rocket.”
Bezos, of course, is far from the only uber-rich weirdo in the space race. SpaceX founder Elon Musk is pretty damn weird himself. For example: He was sued by the SEC for a Tweet that allegedly manipulated Tesla’s stock price and which was possibly sent while on acid, according to a rapper who believes she was invited to Musk’s house for a threeway. Think that’s a weird sentence? Well, how ‘bout this one: Musk was also sued by a cave diver Musk called a “pedo guy” after the cave diver wouldn’t use a miniature submarine Musk offered to free a soccer team trapped underground in Thailand. Still not weird enough? Okay, try this one on for size: Virgin Group founder Richard Branson holds the records for first trans-Atlantic crossing in a balloon, most people on a kitesurfing board, and fastest English Channel crossing in what is basically the amphibious car James Bond drove in The Spy Who Loved Me. These sentences are Weird Rich Guy Mad Libs -- here, try one!
Reactions to Bezos’ flight seemed to closely mirror people’s pre-existing opinions about Jeff Bezos. People really hate Bezos; “Jeff Bezos sucks” might be the only opinion that Tucker Carlson and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez share. Musk and Branson elicit similar reactions. My goal in this article isn’t to convince you to like these people; my goal is to convince you that they’re the best thing to happen to NASA since freeze-dried ketchup. If you support NASA and want to see its mission furthered, as I do, then you should view the involvement of these affluent freak shows as a positive development.
I think of NASA as the existential threat agency. Much of what we know about climate change comes from NASA, and their research reduces the risk from things like asteroids and solar flares. They’re also responsible for all the best NOVA episodes; my favorite NOVA genre is definitely “look at what this space probe found,” followed by “European nerds tackle huge engineering challenge,” and “we found a bunch of old Viking shit.”
Of course, to many people, “NASA” means “astronauts”. If you’re like most people, then you’re inspired by the prospect of human-kind exploring new horizons in space. If you’re like me, you think we should send robots to do that stuff and stay on Earth where we have oxygen and copious snack foods. But people in both camps agree that it would be better if it cost less to send people and things into space. Space travel fans would like to see more space travel, and robots-and-research people would like NASA’s budget to not be entirely blown on things like retrieving Matt Damon from Mars (#LetMarkWatneyDie).
The ‘90s and 2000s were not great decades for getting people and things -- or, at least, American people and things -- into space. In the ‘70s, the Space Shuttle Program was envisioned as a way to make space access inexpensive and routine; it ended up being anything but that. Launch costs skyrocketed (pun never intended), slow turnaround times led to disappointing revenues, and the Challenger and Columbia disasters exposed safety issues. The program finally ended in 2011, and since then, American astronauts have only been able to get to space by out-bidding Lance Bass for a seat on a Russian spacecraft. And no matter what you think NASA’s role should be, “subsidizing the Russian defense industry” probably isn’t on your priorities list.
The Space Shuttle program wasn’t NASA’s only launch effort that ended up way over budget and ultimately grounded. The Space Launch System (SLS), envisioned as the successor to the space shuttle, is notoriously expensive and behind schedule; astronomer Phil Plait called it “a steaming pile of anti-science.” It was announced ten years ago and is yet to fly.1 The SLS followed the Constellation program, a scrapped plan to send crews to the moon and ultimately to Mars. Constellation was George W. Bush’s idea; much like Trump, Bush had a “hey, let’s go to Mars” moment in the middle of his presidency. Every president thinks he can become JFK by announcing some big, audacious space challenge; at some point in my life, I’ll probably hear a president say “With God as my witness, we will put men on Saturn and then blow it to smithereens before Christmas. Go USA!”
We shouldn’t be surprised that NASA struggles to build rockets cheaply and quickly. Government projects aren’t built for efficiency; they’re built to please Congress, which controls their funding. I’ve written before about the government’s tendency to be risk-averse, which is a major source of cost inflation. If a private company blows up a few passenger-less rockets, the public’s reaction is basically: “Cool!” If NASA does it, they’ll get hauled before the Budget Committee and have to answer to Lindsey Graham. It’s hard to overstate the lengths people will go to to avoid talking to Lindsey Graham. Honestly, one of the best arguments for going to space is: “Lindsey Graham isn’t up there.”
NASA’s recent record of in-house rocket building is poor and unlikely to improve. But, as of the early 2000s, the private sector wasn’t doing much better. In 1999, Congress put protectionist rules in place that tanked the American satellite and rocket industries. By the early 2000s, NASA was locked in a series of low-performing contracts with basically the only game in town: United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Lockheed Martin and Boeing, in case you’re not familiar, are professional Congress-lobbying companies that also dabble in aircraft. Putting them in a position to win government contracts with virtually no competition is the equivalent of a person who has to work on Halloween putting a bowl of candy on their porch with a note that says “please take one”. There’s just no chance that’s going to work the way you want it to.
This was the landscape when Bezos and Musk decided to launch their billions into space. Neither was taken seriously at first, and it’s easy to see why: Musk’s resume at the time basically made him Russ Hanneman from Silicon Valley, and Bezos hadn’t yet achieved his dream of crushing every independent bookstore on Earth. It was far-fetched to think that two tech entrepreneurs with no background in aircraft engineering might cut into the market share of a company that is basically Military Industrial Complex, Inc.
But, good news: Bezos and Musk are weirdos. They have incredibly ambitious, some would say delusional (I am saying delusional) visions for their companies. Both have been clear about where they want their ventures to lead: space colonies. Bezos wants to build settlements on the moon, and Musk wants millions of people to live on Mars. To which I say: Good luck with that, gents. You can probably get a few random weirdos to live on Mars, just like you can get a few random weirdos to live in Maine. Personally, I won’t be joining Musk’s 38% gravity kibbutz, because I enjoy things like water, having contact with humanity, going outside without wearing 50 pounds of gear, and not having my bones turn to dust because I didn’t evolve to live on fucking Mars.
It’s far from clear that any of the space billionaires made a shrewd business move. One hedge fund operator said that Musk “has created some of the most brilliant schemes to destroy shareholder value in the history of American finance.” It could be argued that, from a financial standpoint, they would have been better off investing in literally almost anything else, from turnip futures to Beanie Babies. The fact that they used their money how they did indicates a passion for space.
And I’m glad they have that passion, because NASA is definitely better off with them in the game. We now have the competitive market for space flight technology that we didn’t have in the early 2000s. The Obama Administration took advantage of the changing landscape by starting the Commercial Crew Program, which accelerated NASA’s partnerships with companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. The goal was to end reliance on Russian rockets and reduce the cost of space travel. This represented a major change: For the first time, NASA would send astronauts into space on rockets built by private companies.
Some people have an anti-corporate gag reflex that makes them vomit upon hearing the word “private”. And, as already discussed, Musk and Bezos are about as popular as the stingray that killed Steve Irwin. Perhaps not surprisingly, the hostility from some corners of Twitter that greeted Blue Origins’ flight last month was intense. And on one hand, I get that; when a billionaire dresses up like a literal space cowboy and rides a circumcised chode into space so he can throw Skittles at his brother, he’s due for some online ribbing. But on the other hand, I think some people’s hatred of Bezos and Musk is blinding them to the progress private space companies are making.
The Commercial Crew Program is working. Last year, SpaceX sent two astronauts into orbit, which was the first time NASA launched its own astronauts since the space shuttle was retired. The mission wasn’t free of goofiness -- I personally think the space suits had a real “Doctor Evil if he got married on the moon” vibe -- but it was a success. And reusable rockets and other innovations have, as hoped, driven down the cost of space travel:
I understand nostalgia for the “old” NASA. I get the affection for ex-Navy astronauts who make Johnny Unitas look like a dirty hippie flying to the moon in a spacecraft with the computing power of a FitBit. It’s strange to have them replaced, in some way, by cosplaying tech sector weirdos. But those weirdos are furthering NASA’s mission by building the rockets that NASA has proved it’s not good at building. That, in turn, frees up money for science and exploration. I won’t try to stand in the way of the Twitter joke-gasm that will happen if, one day, Richard Branson orbits the moon wearing just UGG boots and a Speedo, or if Elon Musk lands on Mars and his immortal first words are: “That cave guy is a pedo.” But we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that if you care about NASA, if you care about science and exploration, then you should be rooting for these strange, strange men.
Its first flight is scheduled for November.
Thank you. This totally changed my perspective. I guess I’m nostalgic. But it’s true. Much of the government projects, even under private contract, are self-licking “fiefdoms of NO” ice cream cones. Not to mention they have a relatively high level of leadership turnover/switching at multiple levels. Maybe it does take a wacky self-obsessed-but-capable billionaire, with the need for spectacularly public ego-stroking, to overcome this organizational norm.
One might argue being weird is an asset when it comes to space travel. Back in the day when Russia sent Laika the Husky into orbit, the U.S. one-upped them with the adorable if heroic Ham the Astrochimp. And then when Russia countered with Yuri Gagarin, it only made sense for America to be like, that's the best you got? And then launch a real American hero with brass balls into orbit.
When it comes to dealing with what spending extended time in space actually means for the human psyche and body, we should all get behind the guys who seem to be least tethered to the realities of Planet Earth.