July 11, 2021, which will always be for us the day we won the European football championship at Wembley, in the history books it will probably be remembered as that of first flight of space tourism.
Richard Branson, who became a billionaire starting from a London record shop, fulfilled his childhood dream by flying, with four people, about 80 kilometers high in his own plane, or rather, a space plane, the SpaceShipTwo, built by the company. which he founded in 2005, Virgin Galactic. The five pioneers stayed up there for four minutes, just enough time to take off their seat belts and try to stay gravity-free, and go back to the ground happy in New Mexico.
In a few days it will be the turn of Jeff Bezos, founder of Blue Origin, which will reach over 100 kilometers in height, where, according to some calculations, Space really begins; and then to Elon Musk, who yesterday went to greet Branson personally as documented by a tweet in which he is seen barefoot.
These are very expensive trips, in some cases the tickets have been sold for millions of dollars. But we must escape the temptation to consider these missions for what they appear: the new roller coaster of billionaires. In the history of humanity often the pioneers were rich people who, instead of just lazing around, tried to move the bar a little further than possible. Among other things, on the Branson SpaceShipTwo the next passengers will be Italians and they will be scientists: thanks to an agreement dating back to 2019, Air Force officers and CNR researchers will fly to conduct scientific experiments “in the 7 minutes of the parabolic flight in which they will find themselves in conditions of microgravity”. And this too is Italy that wins.
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