WITH the feet of Jeff Bezos (the world’s richest person) back on terra firma after his brief catapult into space, his head is still most definitely up in the stars.
It was noticeable that Bezos’s marketing team made a dig to counter Richard Branson’s first-out-of-the-trap trip into space, by stating that the Blue Origin craft had been 10 miles higher than Branson’s Virgin Galactic. Boys and toys, eh?
Mr Bezos is still more than a bit irked at Elon Musk’s SpaceX getting the contract for the next Nasa Lunar spacecraft to take astronauts to and from the moon as soon as 2024. So he has offered Nasa a free delivery to the moon and back, by covering up to $2 billion and cost overruns, if they occur.
Doesn’t this sound like Amazon Prime on steroids?
READ MORE: Roxanne Sorooshian: Billionaire space race is Hitchhiker's guide to the fallacy
This space travel is brought to you by a company that does not generally pay business rates to our local government finances, other than for the major warehousing hubs. Just a wee point – most governments will not be able to use this service; watching from afar is all that we will get.
Will this splurge of space cash, part of which was avoided tax liberated from punters in Scotland, regenerate the centres of Scottish cities, towns and villages? Not likely. The demise of these will continue unless the likes of Amazon (other online retailers are available) are required to pay their way to keep the society infrastructure intact at least. We as users of and contributors to the society we inhabit must actively support locally produced items, and reuse as much as possible.
With the rapid changes that have occurred to our society involving technology and connectivity, it is seemingly outstripping the capacity of our society to change to adapt to these changes, without pain to some, normally the poorest and least resilient.
Is this a rather cavalier approach to change?
Not really, Cavaliers had high standards of chivalry, where they protected the poor. This is more akin to the Wild West, with a gun being fired and the wagons and riders charging across the “prairies” of space, to “stake their claim” spending resources, extracted from small people around the world like me.
I am not against space travel, but I would prefer it was directed and funded from international and governmental finances. I would also prefer to see exploration of our own blue planet funded, before we “stake claims” on remote planets or asteroids.
Alistair Ballantyne
Birkhill, Angus
I HAD an interesting communication today with a friend who lives in Santiago de Compostela in north-west Spain. He had said that he is amazed to hear that the UK is behaving as though the pandemic is over.
He sent me a link showing current life in Santiago, and the contrast to the UK is startling. More than 99% of people are still wearing masks despite the vaccine programme going very well. The people continue to wear masks as they don’t want to catch or pass on the virus. They also see masks as a way of avoiding long Covid.
The population of Santiago do not see the sensible precautions as an imposition or a diminution of freedom. Masks do not appear to prevent the people having an otherwise normal life.
I would rather we follow the Spanish example than Boris Johnson’s chaotic and dangerous “road map.”
Harry Key
Largoward, Fife
WE now know why the BBC was so determined to make the over-75s cough up for a TV licence. It was to pay for an already failed channel, BBC3.
Some bright spark in the lofty echelons of the mighty corporation decided all these years ago that if you were over 30 you needn’t bother tuning in to BBC3, because this was the in place for the young. It would be hip, it would be swinging, it would be cool only it wasn’t – it failed. Being over 30 doesn’t mean you have zero interest in bungee jumping, all-night raves and recreational pastimes. And while it wallowed in its own failure, BBC3 was transferred to the ether, the graveyard of nothingness.
I’m a great believer in the BBC taking risks, but not from the pensions of the elderly. So the BBC is going to relaunch the youth channel on terrestrial and satellite. I could save them a lot of money if they would only listen – don’t. BBC3 is going to fail, again. What is extraordinary is the yawning chasm of cultural ignorance from within the decision-makers of the BBC towards their viewers. With due deference to Broadcasting Scotland, where is a Scottish public service broadcaster when you need one?
Mike Herd
Highland
KENNETH Sutherland’s splendid photograph of a thistle in last Thursday’s National put me in mind of this short poem:
Some people sit on others
Because they’re awfy wee
But I’m a wee Scotch thistle
And naebody sits on me!
Boris, you have been warned ...
James Stevenson
Auchterarder
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