Prince William rarely rocks the boat. But this week he caused a ripple. Announcing a new award for climate change heroes, the royal said: "We need some of the world's great brains and minds fixed on trying to repair this planet, not trying to find the next place."

The prince did not name his targets. But at least two of them are easy to guess. On Wednesday, nonagenarianA person between 90 and 99 years old. Shatner turned 90 in March. actor William Shanter boldly went where no 90-year old has gone before. The rocket was owned by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon and the space travel firm Blue Origin.

Shatner is best-known for his starring role as Captain James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek. His voyage enraged many TrekkiesA nickname for Star Trek's famously devoted fans, famous for their obsession with the franchise.. 

Star Trek depicted a future in which humans and other species had reached a utopian state of peace and equality. It followed a group of researchers and peacekeepers aboard the starship USS Enterprise, sent out to explore the frontiers of the universe, without interfering in the societies they find.

As Trekkie and political organiser Akin Olla says: "Blue Origin represents much of the ills that the people of Star Trek have already overcome." Bezos' net worth of $200bn - greater than that of Iceland, Luxembourg and Sri Lanka combined - stands in stark contest to Star Trek's vision of an equal world.

Amazon has been accused of exploiting workers, placing them on zero-hour contractsAn employment contract in which the employer does not guarantee their employee a minimum number of working hours.  and penalising toilet use. A Washington Post expose of Blue Origin revealed life-sapping working conditions, as Bezos drives employees to compete with rival billionaire Elon Musk's Space X as the first space tourism company.

And while the Enterprise crew have instructions to avoid inferring with the spaces they find, Bezos one day aims to colonise space. At a 2019 press conference, he revealed plans for miles-long floating cities that could "hold a million people or more each".

Many wonder whether space tourism is a good idea at all. It certainly has economic potential. It is estimated that the space tourism industry could be worth $1trn by 2040, an enormous sum of money.

Bezos and Musk have both argued that space travel could help us fight climate change, even if only by providing us with new planets to pollute.

Others point out the enormous financial and environmental costs of such missions. Bezos himself visited space for four minutes in July, at a cost of $5.5bn. Emily Bootle of the New Statesman argues that Shatner's flight: "had no scientific or societal value beyond its status as a spectacle, a peacocking of wealth and human dominance".

Both Blue Origin flights so far have thrust up to 300 tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere: one giant leap for pollution. Earlier this week, COP26Cop stands for  Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change president Alok Sharma warned world leaders to take action now or face "climate catastrophe". Space tourism might not just distract us from our environmental worries, but actively make them worse.

Absolutely, say some. Bezos and Musk have enough wealth and technology between them to seek solutions to many of the world's problems, from poverty to climate change. But instead, like many before them, they have placed their own pride and profits above the interests of all.

Of course not, say others. Human society has always thrived on exploration and expansion. Space is the next frontier - and, if Earth becomes uninhabitable, a necessary sanctuary. By developing the technology to allow more people into space, the billionaires might one day prove essential to our survival.