In an era of escalating climate crisis, global inequality, and cultural amnesia, the rise of commercial space tourism by companies like Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic is being sold to the public as a grand achievement of modern science. But let’s be clear: space tourists are not astronauts. And the costs of pretending otherwise — historically, environmentally, and ethically — are far greater than we understand.

1. Space Tourists Are Not Astronauts

The term “astronaut” has long carried weight. It symbolizes decades of rigorous training, technical excellence, survival under pressure, and the ultimate commitment to advancing humanity’s understanding of the universe. The word has never been about merely reaching space — it has been correlated to serving science and the public good.

To equate billionaires and celebrities, who spend a few minutes weightless thanks to the convenience of their bank accounts, with pioneers like Sally Ride, Mae Jemison, or Valentina Tereshkova is not just inaccurate — it’s offensive. These women and many others risked their lives in pursuit of progress. By contrast, today’s space tourists are often joyriders with zero training, no mission, and nothing to contribute but their vanity.

2. An Erasure of Female Astronaut History

Women fought for decades to be allowed into astronaut programs. For years, they were told their bodies were too fragile, their minds too weak, and their presence unnecessary. When Sally Ride became the first American woman in space in 1983, it was after overcoming systemic sexism and doubt from nearly every direction.

By calling Jeff Bezos, William Shatner, or a venture capitalist in a jumpsuit “astronauts,” we flatten that history. We erase the brutal reality of what it took for women — and especially women of color — to prove themselves in the most hostile, exclusionary, and dangerous fields on Earth and beyond. Language matters. This isn’t gatekeeping; it’s truth-keeping.

3. Environmental Destruction for the Sake of Ego

Every space tourism launch is an environmental atrocity. Virgin Galactic’s hybrid rockets emit significant carbon and soot into the upper atmosphere, where it does exponentially more damage than at ground level. Blue Origin burns liquid hydrogen and oxygen — clean on paper, but dirty in its production. SpaceX’s Starship tests have resulted in debris fields, toxic chemical leaks, and wildlife disruptions in delicate ecosystems like Boca Chica, Texas.

Let’s be honest: these aren’t scientific missions. They are emissions-heavy stunts for the ultra-rich. They pollute disproportionately for an experience that serves no public benefit. In a time when we are scrambling to mitigate planetary collapse, launching millionaires for photo ops is not visionary — it’s reckless.

4. Complicity in Violence and Funding Apartheid

It’s time we stop pretending these companies operate in a vacuum. Many of the billionaires funding space tourism are deeply embedded in systems of exploitation, surveillance, and militarization. Elon Musk’s SpaceX has been awarded billions in military contracts and supports satellite infrastructure used in modern warfare. Amazon, founded by Blue Origin’s Jeff Bezos, profits from cloud computing systems used by immigration enforcement and the military-industrial complex. Virgin’s Richard Branson? Cozy with global elites and international wealth-hoarding.

Worse still, by glamorizing these space ventures, we distract from the violence being funded with the profits. When spaceflight is built on global labor exploitation and corporate complicity in state violence — from underpaid factory workers in the Global South to infrastructure contracts in support of apartheid regimes — buying a seat on one of these rockets means buying into all of it. It means participating in genocide by proxy.

We must stop calling these space tourists — astronauts.
They are not heroes. They are tourists enabled by wealth inequality, greenwashed public relations, and cultural amnesia.

If we want a future worth living in — one that honors the work of pioneering astronauts, protects the only planet we have, and refuses to glorify violence as progress — we must look beyond the shiny capsules and ask harder questions.

Because the real frontier isn’t space — it’s accountability..