The Future of Space Commercialisation – Will Billionaires Be Leading the New Space Race?
To view the poster full screen right click and open in a new tab
What was once an ambitious race between nations has today become an equally ambitious race between billionaires. In the past, journeys off Earth have been funded by various governments worldwide in an attempt to further the progress of humanity as well as to show off these governments’ technological and military prowesses to one another, and this took the world by storm in a “Space Craze” which spanned entertainment, fashion and toys. In the present day the economic toll has become apparent to these countries as the financial costs and scarcity of resources necessary for space travel are becoming difficult to justify to the taxpayer. As a result, organisations such as NASA have been working with private industries fronted mainly by billionaires to commercialise launches into space. The short-term benefits of this transition to the ‘privatisation of space’ are crystal clear: taking the financial burden off of governments and taxpayers and instead imposing them on global elites; driving costs down through competition between companies, and; accelerating the progress humanity can make with regards to projects such as resource recycling, Moon mining and the terraforming of Mars. However, we look to 2130, more than one-hundred years in the future, to predict what kind of consequences this ‘handing of the reins’ to billionaires may bring. By looking at the political power those involved in space hold, the popularity these billionaires seem to hold with the general public, the accountability which can be held by these private companies and the attitudes such companies have held towards health and safety, we explore whether those consequences will be beneficial or detrimental to the good of humanity as a whole.
In your presentation, you talk about how the tickets would only be affordable by the super-rich. But you do think they’d take some assistants or other helpers to these distant colonies in a new form of space indentured servitude, or do you think they’d have robots (or other technology) to make their Mars living more luxurious and stress-free.
I would say personally that tickets being for the super-rich is more indicative of how space ventures are often perceived to be humanity ‘all in it together’ but in actuality these ventures will only really be beneficial to the billionaires and corporations funding them, as they possess the money and resources. I think realistically in a hundred years time trips to Mars will mostly be for the purposes of resource-mining, terraforming and establishing simple colonies. I’m fairly sure working- and middle-class people will be involved in these processes (and would expect to be paid in return) but it won’t exactly be a ‘holiday’ for them, and will be disproportionate to the benefit to the billionaires and companies funding these voyages.
As you stated
I’m fairly sure working- and middle-class people will be involved in these processes (and would expect to be paid in return) but it won’t exactly be a ‘holiday’ for them, and will be disproportionate to the benefit to the billionaires and companies funding these voyages.
And that this could be considered the basis of our current society oil companies now gain disproportionate return from the work their employees.
If we take that this is just the status quo from any form of industry do the benefits of near endless resources do not constitute a likely average increase in humanities standard of living?
As space is effectively limitless space could shift industry to space? Could we leave Earth as the Home of humanity alone, not also its workplace factory and landfill site?
Perhaps, and I agree that this is already the status quo. It’s possible we could leave Earth alone as humanity’s home but I personally don’t think it would be. Assuming the Earth is still suitably habitable and that consumer capitalism is still going strong, I don’t see any reason why corporations would ignore its own unique resources. There will no doubt be things common on Earth which are rarer on Mars, the Moon and asteroids, and no matter how much competition drives the prices of launching into space down I think it will always be cheaper to source these things on Earth. I think there will be companies who won’t be able to match the economic power of the billionaires able to casually launch into space, but will have enough money to extract resources on Earth and would not want to yield the opportunity just because other companies can do it in space. Though I would love to be proven wrong.
Perhaps with the legislative force of a ‘world government’ this could be possible but I think that’s an even more unlikely solution.