Other Space Adventurers

 The inception of the People's Party, our nation's most successful 3rd party, arose out of the Populist Movement, from men and women who thought they had a better idea for a political party that would represent the ideas and needs of workers.  People with the notion they have better ideas exist in nearly everything, from automobile manufacturers to restauranteurs to dress designers to baseball fans to nearly anything you can imagine.  Those who long to travel in space are no different, and the competition to create the best transportation into space includes more than just Sir Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos.  The space race of governments has cooled, but now the civilians, especially very wealthy men, are in the race.

A previous blog introduced you to the two men who succeeded in their quest, Branson and Bezos, but this blog post will share a few others who have responded to the challenge.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk probably deserves to be introduced next, as the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineer at SpaceX.  Among the very wealthy men in the race into space, Musk may be the wealthiest, a healthy portion of which came from the sale of PayPal in 2002 for $1.5 billion.  Now, in addition to his interest in space travel, he is CEO of Tesla, which is the electric vehicle manufacturer (Tesla Motors) and SolarCity, a solar energy services company (Tesla Energy).  His success story is particularly interesting because he says that 25 years ago he could not afford an office and an apartment, so he slept on the office couch and showered at the YMCA.

Paul Allen

Paul Allen was among those excited by the prospect of space travel, and having co-founded Microsoft Corporation with Bill Gates he had achieved the wealth to pursue other dreams.  His dreams sounded like a lot of fun, including owning the Seattle Seahawks, the Portland Trail Blazers, and part ownership of  the Seattle Sounders Major League Soccer team.  In 2018 Forbes estimated his net worth at $20.3 billion, and in addition to the sports' teams his portfolio included real estate, technology, scientific research, and media companies.  However, his holdings in private space flight ventures are what puts him in this group.  Sadly, he died in 2018.

Naveen Jain

Naveen Jain grew up in New Delhi and in villages in India.  He obtained an engineering degree from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee in 1979 and moved to the United States that same year.  He proudly calls himself an entrepreneur, admitting that he has never started two companies in the same industry and feels that has forced him "...to ask all the curious questions that children love to ask--those we sometimes call 'stupid questions' but which are often brilliant." He co-founded Moon Express, and after facing a series of lawsuits, he announced that Moon Express had become the first private enterprise to receive regulatory approval from the US government to send a robotic lander to the moon.  There goal was to use the robot to mine materials like gold, cobalt, platinum, and Helium from the moon.  I found no further news after the 2017 article.

Robert Thomas Bigelow

Robert Thomas Bigelow made his wealth with the hotel chain Budget Suites of America.  Of all the space adventurers, he is perhaps the most unconventional.  After acquiring his wealth from a hotel chain, he was finally able to begin the space travel career he had chosen for himself at the age of 12.  He is drawn to parapsychological topics, including the continuation of consciousness after death.   By 2011 Forbes estimated his wealth at $700 million.  In 1999 he founded Bigelow Aerospace, and his module, called BEAM, was installed on the International Space Station to test its expandable habitat technology.  News reports indicate that in March of 2020 all 88 members of the company's staff were terminated in what someone called "a perfect storm of problems," including the fact that the Nevada governor had signed a covid emergency directive ordering all 'nonessential' businesses to close.  The most recent information I found indicated that in March of 2021, he sued NASA for $1.05 million. 

My sources are public information, and I have no ability to verify further.  All that I can be fairly certain of is that this group is particularly intrigued about space.  

Challenging Space Travel

Richard Branson

 Isaac Werner may have been seen as a dreamer--leaving the security of the community where family lived to become a druggist in Illinois, and then leaving a successful business to try other careers, resulting in staking a claim on the untamed prairie!  Isaac made a success of his claim, despite years of struggle.

I thought of Isaac as I watched Richard Branson onboard Virgin Galactic, flying to the edge of space on July 11, 2021.  Only a few days later, I thought of Isaac again when Jeff Bezos boarded his own Blue Origin NS-16 to make his own flight.  Certainly, both men had to be dreamers to have imagined the ventures that lead them to achieve the first steps of their dream.

Jeff Bezos

I confess.  With so many issues on earth in need of financial assistance, I found it difficult to fully applaud their achievements.  However, when Jeff Bezos combined his dream of space travel with generosity for things on earth, I was impressed.  I learned that he, through his philanthropic initiative, had gifted $200 million to the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum.  $70 million will be applied to the renovation of the National Air & Space Museum, but $130 million will launch a new education center.  The focus will be on helping teachers utilize the Smithsonian's collections, and programs will be designed to inspire students to explore careers in STEM, the program to encourage emphasis on science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics.  The intention is to reach students and teachers not only in the Washington, D.C. area but also in communities across the country.

That gift alone was quite impressive, but Bezos was not finished.  During the Blue Origin's post flight press conference, Bezos had another surprise--the creation of the "Courage and Civility Award."  Bezos is certainly excited about the role space travel has for future generations, ideas that include moving industries that are currently harming our planet with pollutants to the moon, as one example.  But he also recognizes that problems on earth need to be addressed.  He told the CNN interviewer, "We have to do both...we have lots of problems here and now on Earth, and we need to work on those.  We always need to look to the future.  ...We have to do both."

The present short flights that Branson and Bezos have achieved seem more like billionaires' amusement rides, but Bezos sees their purpose differently.  He believes the opportunity for people to actually "see with your own eyes how fragile it [our planet] really is" will change their perspective on the urgency to protect and save our planet.

That is why he is not only using space travel to allow those with the wealth to by a ticket to see our precious planet differently in hopes they will return from their flights inspired to use their wealth to help solve the Earth's urgent problems.  He is also setting an example through the "Courage and Civility Award," and while he had the world's attention right after the flight, he introduced the first two recipients of that award, giving two men $100 million dollars to make charitable donations of their own choices.

Jose Andres

His first two "Courage and Civility" recipients both have a track record for philanthropic achievements.  Celebrity Chef and restauranteur Jose Ramon Andres Puerta is well known for his non-profit devoted to providing meals in the wake of natural disasters.  He has frequently been recognized for his generosity and organizational ability:  2014 he received an honorary doctorate degree in public service from George Washington University; 2015 he received the National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities; 2012 & 2018 he was named one of the world's most influential people by Time; 2018 he received the James Beard Foundation Award for Humanitarian of the Year; and 2018 he received an honorary Doctor of Public Service degree from Tufts University.  In 2018 he was also named a Nobel Peace Prize nominee for his humanitarian work.

Van Jones

The other recipient of  the "Courage and Civility" award is lawyer Van Jones, perhaps best known from his commentating on CNN from 2013-2019, as well as from his three best-selling books.  However, he is also the founder or co-founder of several non-profit organizations, particularly focusing on resolving problems in the Black community and combining Black jobs with the Green Movement.  He joined with Newt Gingrich and Patrick J. Kennedy on rebuilding the Dream Movement & advocating for Opioid Recovery.  His focus on "green pathways out of poverty" led to his book, whose title plays on the reference to "White Collar" jobs with the title "The Green Collar Economy."  This emphasis on "green pathways out of poverty" included the "Green-Collar Jobs Campaign.  Like the other recipient, he also has received a great many awards.

Isaac Werner received no awards, that I am aware of, but he too served his communities, especially active in his roles in educating farmers.  Perhaps in his small way he met the criteria Bezos set for the recipients of his "Courage and Civility" award, as "leaders who aim high, pursue solutions with courage and always do so with civility."