The Second Space Race

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. In fact, they’re banking on it.

It was around the turn of the millennium that the second space race started. The ultra-wealthy – the moguls, the royals, the oligarchs – mainly men, competing against each other about whose rocket ship is bigger – and stronger, and faster, and better, and carbon-neutral, of course. They had already conquered the seas with their superyachts, the skies with their private jets, and society with their economic and political clout and corruption. Space was next.

They told us that the rockets were passion projects. “What child hasn’t dreamt of flying to outer space?” But we all knew better. The rockets weren’t about passion, nor prestige, they were about survival. They were the rich men’s ticket off this smoldering planet - an assurance that when things got bad, those with the means could jump ship, or spaceship, to be more precise.

In the beginning, like the prophets before us, the so-called scientists said that this would happen, but those who we were told to believe said that the so-called scientists were liars. As the signs got harder to ignore, our ignorance faded, and we all could see that those who we had believed were actually the liars all along. But by that point, it was too late. There were just too many of us, and too much carbon.

We all thought that when things got messy, the rich would ride their rocket ships to stake their claim on another planet, leaving us to die in the desert that earth has become. To their credit, the rich like to help the poor a little here and there. But history has taught us, when the going gets tough, the rich get going. Like way back in the great pandemic, after the swine flu, but before the elephant aches, all of the white people fled back to the comfort of their home countries, where there was water and vaccines.

But that’s not what’s happening this time. This time, the rich have surprisingly decided to save us all, or so they say. We are supposedly going to be sent to a new planet to start a new society, one that will be more equal, more sustainable, and more prosperous than earth ever was.

Do you believe that?

Neither do I.

Here is what is really happening. Now, do I have proof? No, but I have reasonable doubt. The rich and their rocket ships didn’t find any other planets as hospitable as they would have liked – they do have pretty high standards for hospitality after all. Without another planet, their options are very limited, as this one has quickly become quite inhospitable for even those of us with the lowest hospitality standards.

Though they have the weapons to do it, they really can’t start killing us all indiscriminately because we outnumber them a billion to one. If we were organized, we could unite against them. But we’re anything but organized.

Probably their best option, which they’ve fully prepared for, is that they could hide out in their bunkers and hope that we all die off before the planet does. However, the truth of the matter is that years in a bunker, even the luxury ones with the pool halls and the screens that mimic windows, is still a prison. Plus, it’s a gamble – will the food last? Will the starving billions find a way into the bunker and kill them for what’s left of the food? The rich don’t like to gamble, they like to be in control. And they are.

They’ve already put their philanthropy towards planting trees and carbon capture and the like, but that wasn’t enough to be effective. Perhaps that’s because the amount they put towards philanthropy is akin to the rest of us putting a penny in the offering plate at church. But who am I to criticize someone being charitable? It is their hard-earned money, after all. It’s just that we were the ones hard earning it on their behalf.

So what options do they have? They could lie to us and tell us that we’re going to utopia – a utopia that conveniently doesn’t have any form of cross-planet communication. No cell phones. No internet. No way for us to communicate with anyone who has left earth and could provide some sort of concrete proof that this magical paradise really does exist. But of course, the rich men have been there and back. They’ve seen it. They’ve set it all up for us – so we should just sit back and trust that they have truly saved humanity. Funny that they couldn't save this planet, but set up another one a galaxy away, no problem at all. Yes, there are pictures, I’ll give them that. And videos. And some sort of rocks. But are any of them real? How can we tell anymore? When we ask for more proof, they say it’s like we’re asking them to give us proof of heaven. Just believe, okay?

But something feels off. “Women and children first,” is what they said on the Titanic. What they actually did was, “First-class first”. But instead of a Titanic-style emergency departure plan, they’re putting the poor first. They say that they want the most vulnerable among us to go first. So, they’re starting with the slums and going slum by slum by slum to send us slum-dwellers to space. But now, when have you ever known the rich to put the poor first? Only when it suits them. Only as a sacrifice – such as high-risk medical research.

So, is it Eden or is it “economic cleansing”? Are people really arriving in utopia? Or are the being put into a rocket that falls into the depths of what’s left of the ocean, their bodies swallowed up by the vast expanse of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch?

But for most of us, what choice do we have? We’ve squandered our meager earnings for a miniscule chance to win the lottery plenty of times before. What’s the difference now? After all, there is a chance, albeit nano-sized, that this utopia really does exist. So like lemmings to the sea, we'll board their spaceships for that faint glimmer of, dare I even say it, hope. The truth is that the unknown can’t be worse than the hell that is life on earth. But what if we die? At this point, death would be a breath of fresh air.

They say nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space.

But me?

I don't plan on finding out.

I’m not going.

I’m not boarding the rocket ship.

Not now.

Not ever.

No, I’m not abandoning earth, my home. I’m going to save it. But first, my people.