Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Grant Griffiths; Anyone who thinks Prince Charles and Prince Harry are the only royal climate hardliners needs to take a closer look at Prince William.
Prince William criticises billionaire space race after William Shatner’s Blue Origin flight
The Duke of Cambridge says the focus should be on repairing the Earth, not trying to find “the next place to live”.
By Alexa Phillips, news reporter
Thursday 14 October 2021 19:18, UKThe Duke of Cambridge has criticised the space race, saying it detracts focus from addressing climate change here on Earth.
His comments were made after Star Trek actor William Shatner became the oldest person to reach space and called his trip “the most profound experience”.
The 90-year-old blasted off from Texas on a Blue Origin rocket – the space company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
…
In an interview ahead of his inaugural Earthshot Prize, the Duke of Cambridge told the BBC: “We need some of the world’s greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live.“
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Read more: https://news.sky.com/story/prince-william-criticises-billionaire-space-race-after-william-shatners-blue-origin-flight-12433302
In many ways I’m not a fan of Bezos. I don’t like that he gives billions of dollars to climate activists, who in my opinion use that money to exacerbate the misery of millions of people already suffering fuel poverty, by pushing for more high cost green energy. And we all know about the workplace complaints staff employed by Bezos have raised.
However, most people would agree Jeff Bezos’ space achievements are incontrovertibly awesome. So the timing of Prince William’s comments are, at the very least, stunningly out of touch with what most people feel about our childhood hero Captain Kirk of the Starship Enterprise finally making it to space for real.
I have repeatedly read or heard people wishing Prince Charles would step aside for Prince William, on the grounds that they think Prince William is somehow more sensible than his dad.
I believe Prince William optimists are painting their hopes on a blank page. Prince William in my opinion is even worse than his dad. The few occasions Prince William has slipped his minders have in my opinion revealed someone who combines Prince Charles’ eco-whackery with an utterly graceless, mean spirited lack of empathy.
There will be no relief when Prince Charles finally steps aside for the next in line for the British throne.
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Fancy that. Over-privileged brainless twerp begrudges Captain Slog a brief, if expensive, privately funded joyride. How much of public money has been spent on his family’s centuries-long joyrides?
What, no complaint about Sir Richard Branson?
And no complaint about the Russian space tourists sent to the ISS at the same time?
Kirk returned to Earth only to find out that the Borg lives
I think the Kligons will deal with prince “Stiff Upper Lip”.
Instead of William learning from his grandmother about not giving opinions on anything in public, he just couldn’t help opening his big gob!!! What business is it of his what people do with their money and time??? William will soon understand “Everything that goes woke turns to s***!!!”
Meanwhile off the media stage, real work is getting done….
Australia Is Making The Most Out Of The Coal Boom (yahoo.com)
and this too….
Exclusive-China looks to lock in U.S. LNG as energy crunch raises concerns -sources (yahoo.com)
We can decide to stay where we are and eventually die with the sun for all we know the only complex life in the universe. OR we can get out there find out what is going on and perhaps seed other worlds making them suitable for life and evolution whether or not we find a new independent home that’s surly our destiny.Those with a comfortable life voting for the status quo no risk no expermentation no exploration have always been wrong and a damper on humaan progress
The original UK House of Cards depicted a whacky eco-friendly King getting whacked (not sure if he was killed) by the UK’s PM. Let’s hope common sense prevails and PC is seen as whacky deserved to be whacked by all and sundry.
Musk has created Tesla, is heavily into solar and battery storage, and working towards carbon free mass transportation (Boring Company). Why should all of his focus be in one direction? His SpaceX has brought costs of launch down while keeping needless waste out of the ocean through reusable rockets. When Prince William gets granny to spend all of her money “repairing the planet”, I’ll give a damn what he says.
Musk has also brought viable high-speed internet with low latency to rural areas. I love my Starlink!
Willy Hannover says “Harrumph, harrumph”.
I look forward to the announcement which must certainly be coming this week that the Prince has adopted a net zero lifestyle and will no longer sully our planet with his CO2 emissions. There must be a nice cave somewhere in Hyde park he can shelter his shivering, naked, and hungry blue blood skin sack.
Prince William . . . a Daddy’s boy through and through. All doubt about his genetic line has been resolved with these recent remarks about “addressing climate change here on Earth” (whatever the heck that means) and “trying to find the next place to go and live”.
My sympathies to you, William.
I always seek scientific advice from unqualified beneficiaries of hereditary privilege.
Unfortunately, proctocraniosis is also hereditary.
Congratulations, Astronaut Shatner. Live long and prosper.
So much for Next Generation
He’s a real Debbie Downer, isn’t he?
Eric Worrall stated above in his article:
Well, perhaps. In reality, Bezos has basically repeated what NASA did back in May 1961, some 60 years ago, when they launched the first US astronaut on a suborbital flight.
True, Jeff Bezos must be given full credit for:
1) Managing to do this his own funds (now that IS awesome),
2) Designing a launch vehicle that returns to the launch site intact, ready for reuse,
3) Designing the manned capsule/landing system that can parachute down to a safe landing on solid earth, not on an ocean surface (take that, SpaceX),
4) Designing the launch system and capsule to carry six passengers, although the first two flights only carried four apiece.
5) Enabling “average people” (well, those with enough money, that is) to travel into space and become full-fledged astronauts without having to undergo the rigorous training that NASA currently requires for their astronauts (lucky you, William Shatner).
So, Eric, I understand where you are coming from with your statement. It’s just that I would not go so far as to characterize Bezos’ space achievements as “incontrovertibly awesome”.
The entire “Star Trek” TV series was likely inspired by the real-life US space program, starting with the Gemini orbital flights, leading into the Apollo moon landings. These were a beautiful demonstration of what mankind can do when everyone works together for a great goal. The “Star Trek” series was developed during a time of optimism and great technological advances, and expanded on what was already achieved to imagine the possibility of space travel to other planets around other stars.
Prince William hadn’t been born yet during the real moon landings in 1969-73, but his grandmother Queen Elizabeth II congratulated the United States (and President Nixon) profusely for the moon landings, despite the fact that every flight to the moon (and also the later Space Shuttle flights) consumed many times more fuel than Shatner’s brief sub-orbital voyage 60 miles above the Earth’s surface, roughly equivalent to William Shepard’s first sub-orbital flight in a Mercury capsule in the early 1960’s.
By the way, more fuel is necessary to launch an unmanned weather satellite or communications satellite into stationary orbit around the Earth, and these satellites can track the movement of hurricanes long before they make landfall, or enable the GPS systems that help millions of people get directions from their cell phones without ever looking at a map.
William Shatner himself, after playing the captain of an interstellar spaceship on TV for many years, marveled at the tremendous forces necessary for space travel, and the feeling of weightlessness, for a voyage of only 60 miles above the earth. Prince William Windsor needs to get the memo that traveling from Earth into space is not as simple as “Beam me up, Scotty!”.
Correction: I meant Alan Shepard. Too many Williams in this comment!
Not interesting. Not a worthy topic for WUWT.
Clearly you are not familiar with the mission statement of WUWT. I suggest you look it up … or find a site more to your liking.
CC, environment, animal cruelty…..are just topics for toffs like PW to get free advertising that they have the interests of commoners and underdogs at heart, thereby serving a valuable purpose to those same commoners and underdogs. Without these bleeding heart topics, the monarchy would already be an irrelevant historical footnote, which the family is close to already…
It’s just a repeat of the old fallacy that scientists and engineers can be forced to solve our problems. It fails because you cannot force “creative” people to perform like factory workers. No disservice to factory workers intended.
I would go further with your comment and suggest that perhaps “scientists and engineers” have better things to do than solving manufactured problems founded on fraud and media hype.
So the son is just as much a blithering, dipshit, commieshitbag as the father. Makes sense
William Shatner made 79 episodes of Star Trek and 91 episodes of TJ Hooker.
When William Shatner rode in a cop car after the TJ Hooker series ended, nobody cared.
I do think that in making his comments directly to Jeff Bezos after his brief ride to space, with full television coverage of such, William Shatner forget that he was not Captain Kirk on a film stage but instead was experiencing reality.
Giving that I’m a long-standing fan of Star Trek, I admit that I might be wrong on this . . . but I think not.
He was in only 78 episodes. Although he did do the voice for 22 episodes of the animated series as well.
Mighty bold words from someone who has a carbon footprint
of some smaller counties…
Space is there and it is a place to be used. Back in the 1960s there were demonstrations against the space program claiming the money is better spent here on Earth. Had the demonstrators been listened to there would be no weather satellites or communications supporting cell phones the internet and so on. Like space the Earth is here to be used to better conditions for mankind.
Mining in space is a very advantageous goal to be pursued. It is certain if the Prince had an investment for a good return on that investment he would be for that effort.
To paraphrase there is no royal way to common sense.
Like anyone else HRH William is entitled to this view, it is a pity he mirrors the negative outlook of the climate propagandists like his father. He could do with a more objective opinion, perhaps he could visit here and read a bit.
Good stuff Kirk. Come back prepared with phasers on full and just in time as people are voluntarily reporting to the incinerators.