Retrospective Futures 4

Above left: Book cover of Ben Elton’s 1989 novel, Stark published by Black Swan. Image credit: Bookradar.com

Above right: The launch of a Blue Horizon rocket and the new era of space tourism. Image credit: Yahoo.com

When Billionaires Build Themselves Space Rockets

In 1989 British comedian and author, Ben Elton published Stark, which was a novel about a near distant future where the super-rich formed something of a secret consortium whose prime focus was to leave planet Earth. The members of the club set about building a spaceport in the Western Desert of Australia, far from prying eyes. As the story unfolded, runaway climate change was in full swing and this group of ridiculously wealthy people knew the planet was doomed. Thus, the rocket base was something of a lifeboat to get off the sinking planetary ship in rockets Elton called, ‘Star Arks’. It was later made into a film for the small screen.

Ben Elton famously likened the building of an extra lane on the M25 to an eternally full kitchen bin. No matter how big you make it, it just always seems to be full. And so it came to be. The four lane M25 became just as chocker as the three-lane motorway it superseded. Elton, it would seem, has an uncanny ability to see the future but did he really think that billionaires would be building space rockets within 30 years of his book? That is of course exactly what we have with Bezos, Branson and Musk all pursuing their Bond-villain business plans of commercial space travel for the obscenely rich.

If the outcomes of COP26 are on the right track, we should soon all be a lot more focused on living within our remaining equitable shares of carbon budget. The need to be increasingly carbon thrifty will shine a brighter and angrier spotlight on the excesses of others. Some estimate these ten or so minute duration rocket flights emit between 50 and 100 times more CO2e per passenger than a typical long-haul passenger airliner flight, which is around one to three tonnes of emissions per passenger.[1] Space tourism is an example of the technical prowess of the human species but also of our ability to create ever higher levels of non-essential consumption.

There might however be a silver lining to consumer space travel. Just a few days after COP 26 started and only a few months after his first sub-orbital flight in Blue Horizon, Jeff Bezos decided to increase his investment on reforestation projects on the African continent from $1 billion to $2 billion. Seeing Earth from space has that effect on people as most poignantly celebrated by the Apollo 8 astronauts who witnessed for the first time the Earthrise over the horizon of the moon. They saw Earth as a brilliant blue orb hanging above the lifeless expanse of the moon’s cratered surface. The contrast between something alive and something dead could not have been made more profound. Jim Lovell said at the time, "The vast loneliness is awe-inspiring and it makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth."[2] Over 52 years later Bezos echoed Lovell’s comments when he said, ‘I was told that seeing the Earth from space changes the lens through which you see the world. But I was not prepared for how much that would be true. Looking back at Earth from up there, the atmosphere seems so thin. The world so finite and so fragile. Now in this critical year, and what we all know is a decisive decade, we must all stand together to protect our world.’[3]

We wonder then, if those who buy these rocket trips go up to space not caring too much about their personal carbon footprint but, having experienced that looking back at Earth epiphany moment, come back down with a heightened awareness of the need to act on the human impacts on climate change. Perhaps we might conclude, not all of Ben Elton’s 1989 novel should come to pass.

[1] https://theconversation.com/space-tourism-rockets-emit-100-times-more-co-per-passenger-than-flights-imagine-a-whole-industry-164601

[2] https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/image_feature_1249.html

[3] https://metro.co.uk/2021/11/02/jeff-bezos-tells-cop26-going-to-space-made-him-appreciate-the-climate-15527605/