> That's conceivable. But I don't see the space science fiction of Le Guine or Asimov being realized in the activities of Musk and Bezos. To me, the whole thing seems more like an awkward dick measuring contest. The awkward situation with Shatner was a good example of how hollow and superficial this whole thing is. These people could go down in history as benefactors and heroes of humanity. But they don't have the guts for that.

SpaceX has done a huge amount of engineering work in making the cost to get mass into orbit significantly cheaper, more reliable, and more routine. Elon Musk is, on a personal level, because of the sort of company he chose to build after becoming wealthy, absolutely responsible for bringing humanity closer to a future imagined in space science fiction.