Note to breathless reporter: multi-billionaires, hundreds of times over, who have billions and billions of dollars to spend on their toys are not:

A ) pioneers

B ) “everyday Americans”

Every day Americans worry about the fact the cost of a loaf of bread has doubled in the past year, and eggs and milk. That their car needs tires and the cost is up 80%. They do not, in fact, worry where to build their new spaceport.

Gus Grissom was my hero as boy. He was the second American in space. He nearly drowned in the Atlantic when the hatch blew on his Mercury capsule in July 1961. Gus’s dad worked double shifts in the factory so Gus could go to Purdue and get a degree in Aeronautical engineering. Gus changed his own oil in his car, would take a swing at you if you pissed him off, and his favorite expression was “fuckin’ A.” He died in the Apollo 1 fire January 1967. Many think, had he lived, Gus would have been the first man to walk on the moon.

Gus was a pioneer. He was an every day American. Gus had, what Tom Wolfe called, “The Right Stuff.”

Please don’t ever compare these rich boys playing with toys to the pioneers of space flight.