Yesterday Jeff Bezos launched himself into space in a flying penis to create sort-of history, becoming the second billionaire to accomplish something that the United States, Russia, and China have been doing semi-regularly for decades.
Now, I’m not gonna knock the recently divorced man who wore a cowboy hat at a press conference. Because, for the record, I’m not anti-private sector space travel. I am pro-all space travel. Yes, I’d prefer an optimistic Star Trek future - with a society that doesn’t have money and is well educated - over a cold corporate Weyland-Yutani nightmare, where outer space is mined for bioweapons and space oil. Still, I think it’s great when we go up EVEN IF it’s driven by the ego of men whose actual organic dicks are, I’m increasingly sure, small or weird.
Smarter anti-capitalists than I have already tweeted about why it is annoying that the richest men on the planet are taking joyrides in Freudian dream machines, so that’s not what I want to talk about. Billionaires will leave us to melt on the scorched earth before meaningfully addressing climate change, but that doesn’t change the fact that going to space is cool. Going to space in weird-ass looking spaceships: even better.
Okay, so this one’s a penis. Not great. But it’s better than another boring spacecraft that we’ve all seen a million times already. If Bezos’s whole personality or his motives were more tolerable, this would all be less embarrassing. Hell, if Tom Cruise (who is also not the best human) hopped in a giant coping mechanism and flew to space for the next Mission Impossible movie, I’d still be pumping my fist, clapping strangers on the back, smiling like - well, like Tom Cruise.
The last time they really changed how spaceships looked was with space shuttles, which was science fiction becoming reality. They could land! They could be used more than once! We will conquer heaven! But that was in 1981. And some of those blew up, so looking at them is a little sad now.
The cultural benefit of publicized spaceflight is that it can stir the imagination. We do it to foster a belief in human creativity and ingenuity. I know retro is chic, but should we be using something from the 80s to galvanize a shared human dream?
The best spaceships are all insane-looking. They exist in fantasy, so they don’t have to worry about physics. It’s not out of the question to expect some beveled edges, maybe dome, or some bubbles on these things.
The future is so dull compared to our visions for it.
My personal favorite spaceship is the Tantine IV, which was the first thing you see in Star Wars. It’s not as sexy as the Starship Enterprise, or as charming as the Millennium Falcon, but it seemed comfy. I want to go to space, sure, but what I really want is to do so in a cocktail lounge. I want space to be easy, and par-for-the-course, but no less awe-inspiring and magical.
So look, make fun of Bezos and his space dick. You’re not wrong. I don’t think rich guys privatizing exploration will stir a new space age on their own. After all, Boston Dynamics releases weekly videos of their Terminator robots doing a softshoe routine, and nobody is any more endeared to them.
But I’m here for the johnson rocket, in principle if not in practice.
Anyway, here are some other cool things you can do with all the money in the world:
Fulfill every teacher in America’s Amazon wishlist
Give every American $25. A nice Tuesday pick-me-up we’d all enjoy
Alternatively, give just every employee of Amazon a $173,628 bonus
Become Batman, or more likely Iron Man. Still ego-driven, but fun for the kids
Still fly in the penis spaceship, but also pay federal taxes