logo
episode-header-image
Feb 2025
23m 15s

Another Take: What the billionaire space...

Al Jazeera
About this episode

Every weekend, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on July 19, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.

The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, is heading to space on his own spaceship on July 20th – though he’s already been upstaged by another billionaire space tour. Where the global space race was once decided by the wealth of nations, now its future is increasingly determined by ultra-wealthy individuals worth more than many countries. Their pursuit of space could put new resources in reach, and it’s reshaping the laws of outer space – at least, the ones made by humans.

In this episode:

  • Lucianne Walkowicz (@RocketToLulu), Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and Co-Founder of Just Space Alliance (@JustSpaceOrg)
  • Lisa Ruth Rand (@orbital_decay), Assistant Professor at the California Institute of Technology

Episode credits:

This episode was updated by Chloe K. Li and Sarí el-Khalili. The original production team was Alexandra Locke, with our host Malika Bilal.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.

Connect with us:

@AJEPodcasts on Instagram, X, FacebookThreads and YouTube

Up next
Jul 5
Brief: Iran holds funeral processions for late Ayatollah. Israel-Lebanon ceasefire tested in the south
This week: 277 days into a ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 1,066 Palestinians in Gaza. Iranians gather for funeral processions of the late Ayatollah killed in the Israel-US war. Israel-Lebanon ceasefire being tested in southern Lebanon. Israelis demanding inquiry into Octob ... Show More
6m 58s
Jun 30
The path from Gaza to Trump's return
What happened inside the White House after October 7, 2023 changed the course of Israel’s war on Gaza and reshaped the Democratic Party. After three primary elections that could indicate the future of the Democratic base, a new book by Akbar Shahid Ahmed reveals the inside story ... Show More
27m 40s
Jun 29
Mehdi Hasan: Disrupting democracy’s decline
Mehdi Hasan has had a front seat to US and UK politics for decades. With the UK facing yet another change in prime minister a decade after Brexit, and the US looking ahead to its next vote with the midterm elections in November, we get his take on this moment and why independent ... Show More
20m 29s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2021
July 11, 2021 |On GPS: A special hour as billionaire Richard Branson blasts off to space
Fareed sits down with the renowned astrophysicist and author Neil deGrasse Tyson to discuss the science behind the billionaire race to space and contextualizes this moment in the history of human space exploration. Then, CNN’s space and defense correspondent, Kristin Fisher, whos ... Show More
58m 7s
Jul 2021
The billionaire space race
Why Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are battling it out among the stars. Ed Butler speaks to Brad Stone, author of the book Amazon Unbound, about Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's lifelong obsession with space, and to Christian Davenport, space reporter for the Washington Post, about the grow ... Show More
18m 15s
Jan 2025
Billionaires boldly go: private space-treks
<p>This week <a href="https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2025/01/01/can-jeff-bezos-match-elon-musk-in-space?utm_campaign=a.io&utm_medium=audio.podcast.np&utm_source=theintelligence&utm_content=discovery.content.anonymous.tr_shownotes_na-na_article&utm_term=sa.listen ... Show More
28m 59s
Oct 2021
Beam Me Up Bezos
William Shatner, aka Captain Kirk, is going into space for real. He’s swapping the Starship Enterprise for Jeff Bezos’s space travel company, Blue Origin. Fellow Canadian and astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield tells us what he can expect. Also, the latest on gas prices and why th ... Show More
29m 50s
Jan 2025
Billionaires boldly go: private space-treks
This week Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space-exploration company, successfully launched a rocket into orbit on its first attempt. That marks a new frontier in the private space industry. Donald Trump has threatened mass deportations of illegal immigrants. What will happen when he ta ... Show More
28m 59s
Sep 2024
One giant leap for private SpaceX-ploration
Today, SpaceX’s crew of billionaire Jared Isaacman and three other private astronauts completed the world’s first-ever commercial spacewalk. We’ll get into it. And, Congress is quickly approaching yet another deadline to avoid a government shutdown. What’s holding up lawmakers fr ... Show More
11m 23s