With about 200 orbital launches scheduled and ambitious missions on everything from lunar bases to the search for life in the works, there’s a lot to watch in 2022. An astronomer explains the highlights.
John Colley, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick
No sooner has he returned from space than the Virgin king is making noises about putting his airline on the stock market.
Both Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson successfully rode to space on rockets made by their private companies Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, respectively.
AP Photo/Tony Gutierrez
Joseph Cabosky, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
According to a new poll, people across political and demographic lines think the private space race is good for the future but still just an ego trip for the billionaires involved.
Musician Aidan Roberts performs Tubular Bells for Sydney Festival in 2012.
AAP Image/April Fonti
Rising to prominence in The Exorcist soundtrack and the first album from Richard Branson’s Virgin Records, the layered sounds of Tubular Bells became a template for further innovation.
Sure, they’re billionaires, but the exploits of Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos have undeniably brought space tourism a step closer. That raises tricky legal, ethical and environmental questions.
Recent space flights by multi-billionaires highlight the extreme economic inequality in America.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images
In 1970, Gil Scott-Heron penned a spoken word song called ‘Whitey on the Moon’ that criticized the 1969 Moon landing. A hip-hop scholar explains why the song still reverberates today.
Both Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin are sending spacecrafts – and their billionaire founders – into suborbital flight. But what differentiates a suborbital flight from a trip around Earth?
It wasn’t long after Jeff Bezos announced his plans to go to space that Sir Richard Branson joined in, setting a launch date to beat Bezos by nine days.
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus and Tom Rogers, Coventry University
Even before the British billionaire invested US$1 billion in making the region ‘climate-smart,’ Jamaica, Barbados and Dominica were pioneering a renewable energy boom in the Caribbean.
Masaō Ashtine, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus
Tesla, China and Richard Branson are among those offering to help Caribbean nations rebuild – and do so in a greener, more resilient way – after the devastating 2017 hurricane season.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu celebrated his 86th birthday and the unveiling of an arch in his honour outside St George’s Cathedral in Cape Town.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings