‘They Could End World Hunger But Instead They Race For Space’: 26 Of The Most Honest Reactions To The Billionaire Space Race

As you might know, the richest man in the world, Jeff Bezos, has an aerospace company called Blue Origin and it will bring him into outer space. Bezos is getting inside his own space shuttle, New Shepard, on July 20. But even though he's about to achieve his boyhood dream, the owner of Amazon won't be the first billionaire to launch himself above the rest of us (that honor belongs to former Microsoft software engineer Charles Simonyi). Nor will he be the second one.

Soon after he made his plan public in June, Richard Branson stepped in to say that more than a week before Bezos, he would be boarding his own Virgin Galactic VSS Unity for a spaceflight. And on Sunday, he did. The 70-year-old won the billionaire space race.

But not everyone finds this rivalry useful. Or even inspiring. Writer Jacob Silverman, for example, called it "a tragically wasteful ego contest." But he's not alone. Many Twitter users seem to agree with Silverman and have been criticizing the billionaires for being out of touch with reality.

Image credits: richardbranson

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