Abacus | Nuclear fusion or galactic pollution, what’s the conclusion for China’s billionaires?

The rivalry between the American and British innovators Bezos, Musk and Branson has become a circus as their massive wealth goes to one-upmanship in super hi-tech endeavors

The rapid growth of relatively young Chinese billionaires over the last 12 months gives them ample time to join in, but will it be spaceships, hyperloops or clean energy perhaps?

Reading Time:5 minutes

Jeff Bezos and his brother plan to be on Blue Origin’s first crewed space flight. Photo: EPA

Published: 8:00am, 28 Jun 2021Updated: 8:00am, 28 Jun 2021

THERE ARE CHILDREN SOMEWHERE, I CAN SMELL THEM

In my youth, I wanted to be an inventor. I was glued to old movies on the telly about Thomas Edison, Barnes Wallis, Louis Pasteur, and of course Ian Fleming’s fictional Caractacus Potts. All good, clean Sunday afternoon BBC TV.

After school I would race to my garden-shed headquarters to work on ideas for how to make my wooden go-kart steer using a joystick, and for how to make it go without my mate Gary pushing it.

Growing up during the Apollo moon shots, it was space flight that stimulated me to dream up designs for my own rocket. One design used a series of pressurised baked bean cans – they were cheap. My classroom teacher, Mr Williams, pointed out that I couldn’t get any liquid oxygen to experiment with. Undeterred, I went back to my chemistry set and started working on a new idea that burned holes in my dad’s lawn.

My rocket design never flew, but I remember watching a programme about Sir Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft. By utilising a few tin cans and a vacuum cleaner, he proved his floating contraption could work. Perhaps I was on the right track with those bean cans after all.