The Bezos backlash is bigger than Blue Origin’s success
The animus had little to do with his space company, Blue Origin. Much of it was driven by Bezos’ wealth and how he got it, amplified by recent reporting into the poor treatment of Amazon’s logistics workers and how the company’s founder used (legal) strategies to avoid paying income tax.
A good deal of the Bezos hate is simply people upset with the idea of private enterprise at all, or based in false binaries about Bezos not spending his money to fight poverty or climate change. (Bezos, a latecomer to philanthropy, has committed $10 billion to organizations focused on decarbonizing the economy and $100 million to feeding the poor.)
Other critics clearly have basic misconceptions about space exploration: Some portion of the public incorrectly thinks that previous NASA successes did not involve private companies, or that people like Bezos, Richard Branson, or Elon Musk are replacing or redirecting NASA’s science work.
The reality is both more prosaic and more interesting: Bezos and Branson have had very little impact on NASA thus far beyond offering a new (and appreciated) venue for experimental payloads in microgravity, while Musk’s SpaceX has saved the agency billions and given it the ability to fly astronauts once again.
