The richest person on the planet — Jeff Bezos — left the planet on Tuesday. The Amazon founder, along with three others, rocketed 65 miles into the air on the Blue Origin spacecraft.
“Best day ever,” Bezos said.
Upon his return, Bezos told MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle, “We have to build a road to space so that our kids and their kids can build the future … when you get up and there you see it, you see how tiny it is and how fragile it is. We need to take all heavy industry, all polluting industry and move it into space, and keep Earth as this beautiful gem of a planet that it is. That’s going to take decades and decades but you have to start.”
Bezos told CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassmann, “You look at this thing and you see how small you are. The world is big, the atmosphere is small. You see there are no boundaries, no lines … This world is full of not enough unifiers and too many vilifiers.”
The crew included Bezos’ brother, Mark, as well as 18-year-old Oliver Daemen. About Daemen, “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King said, “He’s going into space before he goes into college. Think about that for just a minute.” King will have an extended interview with Bezos on today’s “CBS This Morning.”
Bezos’ space trip comes just days after another billionaire, Richard Branson, also went into space. Elon Musk is eventually headed there, too. These trips have left many asking: Is this important stuff or just a bunch of rich guys playing with their expensive toys?
On one hand, as The Washington Post’s Roxanne Roberts pointed out, “Famed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson is supportive of anything that gets people excited about the cosmos.”
But Los Angeles Times columnist Michael Hiltzik wrote earlier this month, “The competition to be the first billionaire in space should mark a milestone in the towering vanity of the wealthy. Let’s promptly dispense with the notion that any of these flights will add anything to our scientific knowledge, unless it’s the establishment of a new metric for how long it takes for money to burn a hole in your pocket when you have more than you could possibly need.”
I tend to lean toward the thinking that it’s these billionaires’ money and if they want to spend it that way, that’s their business. If we can get excited again about space travel and learn a few things along the way, it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
Naomi Osaka for the block
In an apparent and somewhat pathetic effort to stay relevant, former Fox News and NBC personality Megyn Kelly tried to go after tennis star Naomi Osaka, who is taking a break from the sport to improve her mental health. You might remember Osaka pulled out of the French Open and Wimbledon after talking about how anxious and uncomfortable she felt during press conferences.
Osaka will appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and other magazines, and apparently that is rankling Kelly and conservative troll Clay Travis, who showed his lack of understanding about mental health by tweeting, “Since saying she’s too introverted to talk to the media after tennis matches, Naomi Osaka has launched a reality show, a Barbie, and now is on the cover of the SI swimsuit issue.”
Kelly then retweeted Travis’ bad take and added, “Let’s not forget the cover of (& interview in) Vogue Japan and Time Mag!”
Osaka fired back at Kelly with a since-deleted tweet that said, “Seeing as you’re a journalist I would’ve assumed you would take the time to research what the lead times are for magazines, if you did that you would’ve found out I shot all of my covers last year. Instead your first reaction is to hop on here and spew negativity, do better Megan.”
Osaka then blocked Kelly on Twitter — a move that clearly got under Kelly’s skin. Kelly tweeted, “Poor @naomiosaka blocked me while taking a shot at me (guess she’s only tough on the courts). She is apparently arguing that she shot her many covers b/4 publicly claiming she was too socially anxious to deal w/press. Truth is she just doesn’t like Qs she can’t control. Admit it.”
Writing for Deadspin, the always-perceptive Jane McManus wrote, “Kelly once claimed to be a journalist, but that tweet shows she has become just another bully. The mocking use of ‘poor’ as an adjective, suggesting she isn’t ‘tough,’ and refusing to believe Osaka’s description of how she experiences anxiety. Kelly even rejects a factual timeline that disproves her assumptions, something a journalist doesn’t do.”
McManus added, “Osaka doesn’t owe Kelly a thing. And the critics don’t get to put Osaka in a penalty box for discussing anxiety, or play gotcha with their meager understanding of mental health issues. She gets to choose how she engages, how she makes money, what tournaments she plays.”
The Pegasus Project continues
The Washington Post and its media partners continued to publish powerful stories in The Pegasus Project. The project looks at military-grade spyware that was leased by an Israeli firm to governments. The spyware was meant for tracking terrorists and criminals but was also used to hack smartphones belonging to journalists, human rights activists, business executives and two women who were close to murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Tuesday’s latest stories include:
Tweet of the day
This, from CNN commentator and Republican S.E. Cupp: “I’m just sad for the folks who think ‘selling out’ means sticking by your guns, when the rest of the party changes everything they ever believed in just to support one guy, who lost it all for them, and is leading them into a wasteland of conspiracies and oblivion.”
Brady trolls Trump
