In a development so predictable it could have been sketched on the back of a napkin in a Soho bar, Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has managed to turn a rocket launch into a firework display that would make Guy Fawkes blush. The New Shepard, a craft named with all the creative flair of a marketing focus group, erupted mid-flight yesterday, scattering debris across the Texan desert and sending Nasa’s lunar ambitions into a tailspin that would make a drunken pigeon proud.
Let’s be honest, this was always going to happen. When you build a rocket shaped like a giant phallus and launch it from a ranch owned by a man who thinks personal submarines are a necessary accessory, you’re begging the universe for a cosmic comeuppance. The British Space Agency, meanwhile, is now reviewing its contingency plans with the same frantic energy I apply to finding a gin and tonic after a particularly brutal editorial meeting. Apparently, the UK’s involvement in the Artemis programme – which promised to put boots on the Moon by 2025 – is now as stable as a three-legged giraffe on a tightrope.
Let’s not mince words: this is a catastrophe of the highest order, unless you happen to be a conspiracy theorist who believes the Moon is made of cheese and run by lizard people. For the rest of us, it means that the first woman and next man to walk on the lunar surface might have to hitch a ride on a taxi from Vladimir Putin’s space agency, which is about as reassuring as a tea break at a Chernobyl tour. The irony is thick enough to spread on toast: Blue Origin’s whole raison d’être was to make space travel as routine as a Ryanair flight, but without the hidden fees. Now they’ve managed to do the opposite, turning a multi-billion-dollar enterprise into a cautionary tale about the perils of letting billionaires play with fireworks.
Bezos, who was reportedly watching the launch from a superyacht in the Caribbean, issued a statement that read like a robot trying to apologise after a hard drive failure. “We are investigating the anomaly and will work with regulators to ensure the safety of future flights,” he said, which is corporate-speak for “Oops. Our bad. Please keep buying stuff from Amazon.” Meanwhile, Nasa is left with a sour taste and a schedule that now resembles a particularly chaotic game of Kerbal Space Program.
The British Space Agency, ever the optimists, have announced a “full and thorough review” of all contingency plans, which in bureaucratic terms means a lot of tea will be consumed and a lot of meaningless graphs will be drawn. But let’s be real: what could they possibly do? The UK has about as much independent space launch capability as I have for running a marathon after three bottles of cheap Chardonnay. We rely on the Americans, the Russians, or the occasional SpaceX launch, and now one of those has gone belly up in a ball of flames.
So where does this leave us? In a state of suspended animation, drifting through the cosmos with a broken thruster and a half-empty minibar. The dream of a British astronaut stomping about on the Moon now seems more distant than ever, unless we can somehow weaponise the collective anger of the British public towards unreliable trains. But that’s a long shot, and the only things longer are the queues for the Wetherspoon’s breakfast.
In the meantime, I propose a radical solution: let’s give the whole space lark a rest. Spend the money on fixing potholes and subsidising pubs. The Moon isn’t going anywhere, but our collective sanity might. And if you can’t get to the Moon, at least you can get a decent pint.
