Of course billionaires like Elon Musk love outer space. The Earth is too small for their egos | Arwa Mahdawi

This week, Musk's SpaceX will launch the first US astronauts into space in nine years. We're meant to be inspired, but back on the ground the workers are struggling

Here is the bad news: Earth is a bit of a mess at the moment. Here is the good news: there is still an entire universe out there for humans to destroy. And thanks to the ingenuity of a few space-obsessed billionaires, we might be poised to destroy it sooner rather than later.

On Wednesday, Elon Musk's SpaceX company will (unless bad weather delays things) launch astronauts into orbit from US soil; the first time that has happened in nine years. It's one small step for man, but one giant leap for the commercial space industry. We are at the beginning of a new era of privatised, and mainly billionaire-backed, space exploration. Musk has SpaceX; Jeff Bezos has Blue Origin; Richard Branson has Virgin Orbit.