The summer months of 2021 contained several unimaginable events. One of the most recent events that grabbed the world’s attention was the announcement of Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ trip to space.
On July 20, Bezos, his brother Mark Bezos, an 18-year-old student and aviation trailblazer Wally Funk boarded an aircraft and were flown to the edge of space, where they got to experience weightlessness before heading back down to Earth.
“I don’t care too much about Jeff Bezos, so when I saw he was going to space, I thought it was a joke,” said Jesse Martin, a senior conservation biology major.
Being he is the wealthiest man in the world, it is expected that Bezos would spend his money on things that may seem irrational and unnecessary to the average person. But many were still shocked to learn that the four-minute trip would cost around $5.5 billion.
For the average individual, it can be hard to visualize a billion dollars. Furthermore, it can be difficult to understand how someone could spend such a substantial amount of money on a short trip to space that offers no reward besides recognition and publicity.
“The money could have been spent in a more productive way that would have bettered the status of the world in some impactful way,” said Jade Scott, a freshman business administration major.
In light of Bezos’ recent actions, many are debating whether the money should have been given to charities or education rather than being spent on a random space trip.
“I think him spending that much money is stupid because he could have given that money to his workers or helped other people who need and don’t have money,” Martin said.
Bezos’ trip to space brought to light the possibility of other wealthy people visiting space and paying to have the same experience as Bezos. Could space become a tourist attraction for those who have the resources and money to visit?
“While Jeff Bezos going to space is not directly impactful to my life in any way, I can understand why he went. Traveling to space, whether we want to agree or not, is a curiosity on everyone’s bucket list,” Scott said.
Although it can be imagined that space tourism would be extremely expensive, it would be interesting to see how many people would consider saving up their money to embark on this once-in-a-lifetime journey.
Now that Bezos seems to have broken the glass ceiling of commercial space travel and shown that the average person could feasibly go sightseeing in space, many may begin to consider taking part in this extravagant experience.
One day, but perhaps not in our lifetime, people may begin saving their money to take a short trip to space in place of a trip to Disneyland.
