Richard Branson on Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity in July 2021. The billionaire believes the environmental cost of space travel “is about to come down even further.”
Virgin Galactic | via Reuters
British billionaire Richard Branson believes space travel can be beneficial to the planet, arguing that the trips he made in 2021 Open doors and cut red tape.
Speaking to the BBC in a televised interview on Thursday, it was put in place for the entrepreneur who likes Prince William and Bill Gates expressed something degree of suspicion Looking back at space travel there are still many challenges here on Earth.
Branson was also pushed to respond to those saying why, if climate change was one of his top priorities – he previously tweeted that it “Threat to our future” – He was sending rockets into space.
“I agree with him 100% that we have to focus on tackling a lot of the issues in this world and that most of my life now is spent tackling a whole range of different issues in the world,” she replied.
“And I think some of those issues have been made easier to deal with by the fact that I’ve been in space, so now I can pick up the phone pretty well anybody in the world, cutting through the red tape.” I can and hope to settle things.”
The Virgin Group founder is one of the many wealthy individuals to take part in space tourism flights. others include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos via Blue Origin Firm, There is one more billionaire involved in the sector Tesla Chief Elon Musk, via spacex,
During his interview with the BBC, Branson described space travel as “incredibly important” to Earth and made the case for continuing it.
“Communication between people is changing because of space travel and satellites,” he said.
“Monitoring things like rainforest destruction or illegal fishing … has been replaced by satellites out there,” he added, adding that “all of these … are the kinds of benefits that come from space travel.”
In recent years space tourism and other plans for future space exploration have generated significant discussion and debate about their environmental impacts.
For example, in June 2022, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration published a study Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres,
Research, NOAA saidsuggested that “a significant increase in spaceflight activity could damage the protective ozone layer on the one planet where we live.”
For his part, Branson told the BBC That picture was improving.
“Virgin and our major competitors have managed to dramatically reduce the environmental cost of space travel in terms of carbon cost,” he said, adding later that it would “come down even further.”
“You can’t stop progress and you shouldn’t,” he said. “Through progress you get breakthroughs – you can never be sure what breakthroughs you’re going to get, but you get these breakthroughs, and the earth will benefit from it.”
