The world’s most irritating oligarchs all want to be astronauts, from Jeff Bezos to Elon Musk and Richard Branson. When SpaceX’s April rocket launch ended in a “rapid unscheduled disassembly,” schadenfreude was inevitable. After all, these men are taking wealth ripped from their exploited workforces and siphoned from the public through state subsidies and launching it into space. They’re basically conscripting warehouse workers, delivery drivers, and beneficiaries of tax-funded programs into the role of Atlas, eternally struggling to hold up the sky. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking, under these circumstances, that humanity is better off remaining earthbound.

But all of this is precisely why the Left can’t ignore space. Between distaste for its boosters, very real concern about its environmental impact, and an entirely reasonable prioritization of any of the infinite array of social and economic concerns on Earth, space policy has hardly been a focus for the Left. But that’s a mistake, as space is an issue of deceptively paramount importance for our immediate and long-term futures.