Every weekend, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on July 19, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.

The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, is heading to space on his own spaceship on July 20th – though he’s already been upstaged by another billionaire space tour. Where the global space race was once decided by the wealth of nations, now its future is increasingly determined by ultra-wealthy individuals worth more than many countries. Their pursuit of space could put new resources in reach, and it’s reshaping the laws of outer space – at least, the ones made by humans.

In this episode:

Lucianne Walkowicz (@RocketToLulu), Astronomer at the Adler Planetarium and Co-Founder of Just Space Alliance (@JustSpaceOrg)
Lisa Ruth Rand (@orbital_decay), Assistant Professor at the California Institute of Technology

Episode credits:

This episode was updated by Chloe K. Li and Sarí el-Khalili. The original production team was Alexandra Locke, with our host Malika Bilal.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer. Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera's head of audio.

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Another Take: What the billionaire space race means for the rest of us

The Take