FEBRUARY 2025
It’s all too easy to get overtaken by events. There I was around January 16 thinking about comparing myself to Jeff Bezos as he waited to finally get his New Glenn rocket off the ground after any number of frustrating setbacks and delays over the last few years. There are a few differences between the two of us, of course. For example, I don’t have the added pressure of Elon Musk – the “muscle in [Trump’s] protection racket” – breathing down my neck. (I’m quoting Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Clinton and obviously not a Trump fan, who also referred to Musk as a “crackpot would-be prime minister” in an article about the tragic plane crash in Washington and the billionaire’s famous clashes with the Federal Aviation Authority.)
As it turned out, the Starship 7 launch was also postponed and eventually went up later the very same day as New Glenn! It was a bit like Barbenheimer all over again, with a similar number of explosions, as the New Glenn booster came in too fast and crashed into the sea while Starship turned into a spectacular firework display somewhere over the Caribbean (with the FAA investigating both incidents I’m pleased to note).
Did you know that there were a total of 263 orbital rocket launches in 2024, with 145 coming from the USA, 63 from China and a mere 3 from poor old Europe? Space X alone contributed 138 launches, and the company was responsible for vastly more mass-to-orbit than anyone else, heaving an extraordinary 1,500 metric tonnes of payload up there during the year.
Going back to the silly comparison between me and Jeff Bezos, my own frustration is due to further delays with publication of the new novel set on Mars (I’ve had the cover for a while, haven’t I?). Hardly a problem that was going to make the headlines in the international press but frustrating for me, nonetheless. So, where are we? Well, this month I’ve got nothing for you. But I’ve shuffled things around a bit so that next month should see the publication of the new – free – novella Death En Route to Neptune, the murder mystery starring my old friends Zeb and Joplin that I first talked about in December. And the Mars story – thoroughly revised following the receipt of “important new information” – will surely hit Amazon at the start of May without fail. Apologies if you were hoping to get your hands on it sooner.
Talk of Amazon takes me back to Bezos’ “other company”, Blue Origin, and the question of whether it is “really necessary” given the stunning success of Space X. I’m always surprised by this kind of talk, having been brought up on the idea that business is supposed to bring innovation and offer the punters products of value as a direct result of competition. It’s one of the oldest arguments against state control, isn’t it? And yet it seems that today’s tech bros do everything they can to avoid it: they all crave monopolies. Was I the only one who couldn’t avoid a smile when OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, talking about the potentially game-changing DeepSeek app from China, attempted to convince us that he really felt it was “legit invigorating to have a new competitor!”?
Another reason I don’t feel like Bezos (or Mark Zuckerberg, for that matter) is that I’m not so rich that I can’t afford to have principles. Perhaps I’ll know I’ve made it when I’m too scared to say or do what I think is right?
Which brings me back to Elon Musk, because whatever you say about him, you can’t accuse him of not speaking his mind – or, in fact, saying absolutely anything that pops into his head at almost any time of day or night. There’s also a marked contrast in the PR machines operating around Blue Origin and Space X. Blue Origin, as the name suggests, claims to be all about preserving our unique and precious planet. While Space X, of course, aims to save humanity by making us an interplanetary species. Without going as far as suggesting that both philosophies are a load of old bollocks wrapped around the projects after the event by the respective marketing teams, I can’t help wondering what Elon Musk actually means by “humanity”.
As an exiled Brit, you might think this is none of my business, but I was genuinely shocked when I read about his threat to entirely dismantle USAID. USAID funded the rural water projects I worked on in Malawi (alongside, among others, an outstanding engineer and all-round good bloke by the name of Tom Smith who was there with Peace Corps – which also fears for its future). It was a world-famous rural development programme. The traditional leaders and local politicians all got involved, and the beneficiaries provided the manual labour, with women from the villages digging trenches with babies wrapped up on their backs. I’m not saying any aid agency is perfect, or that aid as such isn’t problematic in the long run, but to just scrap it …? And when Musk talks about this being “the best chance” to do all the stuff he’s doing, isn’t that tacit admission that this isn’t about what we used to call “progress”, it’s about taking advantage of the mistake of allowing crackpots to be in charge?
Signing off before I attempt to find the words to comment on Trump’s vision of Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East” (Eastern Ukraine as a gigantic paintball venue for corporate teambuilding? Western Sudan for ethnic camping experiences and camel riding lessons? Courses in DIY synthetic drug production for beginners in Syria?), I find myself recalling a few lines from a Dylan song:
Do you know where we’re headin’? Lincoln County Road or Armageddon? Seems like I been down this way before …
Sometimes all attempts at escapism seem to fail!