Re: Nouveau riche?
But seriously, this is not space, it's not even close. It's just above the Kármán line, a fairly arbitrary distinction, going fairly slowly by satellite standards. Go and do something useful with your money.
But this is exactly how road transport, and later air transport, finally took off (if you'll excuse the pun).
In both cases the rich eccentrics were the ones who started, with small steps, and eventually what they were doing progressed until it became of interest to more staid businesses, at which point some serious money started to be invested and it became more and more commonplace, and more accessible to the general populace.
The trouble with space travel is that it started with a politically driven effort to score points which was very dramatic, but very shortlived, and therefore skewed our perception. What you are seeing now is much more "the norm" it's just we've had our expectations raised by what's gone before.
The successful VTOL, especially the "L" bit, is a major step forwards. Elon must be grumbling to himself today that he didn't get there first, but a bit of healthy competition will benefit everyone.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
