Space tourism may be taking off, but critics not taken with its aims

A handful of billionaire-backed ventures are proving that space tourism could be a part of our future, but some critics say those resources would be better directed toward solving the problems we face on Earth today.

"We need some of the world's greatest brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place to go and live," as Prince William put it this week, summing up a less-than-laudatory attitude among critics watching the tourism-minded space race of our times unfold.

Since the summer, space tourism companies have taken passengers on brief journeys above the Earth and garnered a lot of attention for doing so — in part because of the people they took with them.

Billionaire Jeff Bezos went to space in July, along with three other passengers, on a Blue Origin spacecraft. The company sent four more people to space this past Wednesday — including William Shatner, best known for playing Star Trek's Capt. James Kirk.

"What you have given me is the most profound experience," Shatner told Bezos after his ride to space.

And yet for all the coverage that Bezos has received, he wasn't even the first billionaire to go to space this year — Richard Branson got there first, on a Virgin Galactic flight that carried six passengers, nine days before his Blue Origin competitors.

"The whole thing, it was just magical," Branson said after the flight.