Excuse my (mostly) incurable optimism, but could two successful private space launches in 9 days be something all Americans rally around together?

Multi-billionaires seeking to escape a planet that is literally ravaged by systemic greed produces well-deserved cynical laughter. Optimism would be appropriate were they to do more to make things better for those here on earth.

W/respect, many leveled exactly the same criticism at the moon landing in 1969. Then, the question was: why spend govt money on space when so many are suffering down here? Fair point. But does that apply to all exploration for all time? A matter of worthy debate not laughter

I’m a huge fan of space exploration in general! It’s the billionaire boy toy element that is enraging: billionaires who could have done so much, did so little & even reaped such rewards during a time of collective agony now flaunt their fun before us & expect our congratulations.

I hear you. I do. I just think we should wait to see where these projects lead. Early on, I thought Tesla was something of a luxury/vanity brand but it’s helped grow the electric vehicle market in the US. Space tourism is a rich man’s game but does it push the technology forward?

But there's a context here. We're still in a pandemic where millions died while Bezos, Zuckerberg, Musk etc vastly increased multi-$B fortunes. They had the chance to prove to the world that when situations are that critical the megacapitalists would come through - & they did not

Um, it was because of Bezos’s company that hundreds of millions of Americans were able to access things they needed while being locked down. And Bezos was driven to build that company because he wanted to be really fucking rich. He EARNED it.