Lori Falce: Billionaire space race short on legacy

They say money can’t buy happiness, and that might be true.

I could argue not having to check my bank balance before I order pizza could make me pretty happy, but hey, I’m willing to believe the rich have their own struggles. I’ll never know the terrible pain of a prenuptial agreement, for instance.

So maybe happiness isn’t a guarantee. But there is an entire industry built around the idea money can buy other things, like goodwill and respectability.

For many, Andrew Carnegie is remembered for his pollinating of libraries across the country like a literary Johnny Appleseed, or funding the concert hall in New York that is the ambition of many a musician.

Yes, there is a realization of his importance in the steel industry and the United States’ industrial growth, but philanthropy covers a multitude of faults. People tend to think of museums when Carnegie’s name is mentioned rather than the Johnstown flood or the Homestead strike.

Cornelius Vanderbilt’s famous wealth is remembered not through his ruthless business practices but with Vanderbilt University and the luxurious homes built by his family in Rhode Island and North Carolina. The Rockefellers have a university to their name, as well as buildings at 11 other schools, plus hospitals, museums, streets, charitable organizations and one of the most famous landmarks in New York City.

It’s a time-honored tradition for people who have more money than they could go through with even the most flagrant generational spending. Multibillionaire Warren Buffet, who has spent much of the last decades trading places with Bill Gates for the title of richest man in the world, created a Giving Pledge to encourage more of the world’s super-wealthy to commit to philanthropic giving either during their lives or at their deaths. More than $600 billion has been pledged over the last 10 years.

That is remarkable. That commitment is from 211 of the richest people in 23 countries. The combined worth of Amazon powerhouse Jeff Bezos ($207.7 billion) and Tesla mastermind Elon Musk ($160.4 billion) is more than half of that. Musk has signed the pledge. Bezos has not — although his ex-wife MacKenzie Scott ($61 billion) and her new husband Dan Jewett have.

Both Bezos and Musk, as well as Richard Branson (a paltry $4.8 billion), can do with their money what they like. But it does invite intrigue when all three have been devoting their time and massive amounts of money to very public spectacles recently. These men who have spent their lives reaching for the stars are now trying to get into space.

A little trip through some science fiction titles can tell you why that might not be a great idea. The real lesson from “Alien” isn’t about untrustworthy extraterrestrials.

Bezos definitely has a little of that robber baron cachet that could use a philanthropic makeover rather than the speech he gave after his jaunt into the wild blue yonder.

“I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for this,” he said.

That’s probably not the thank-you that Amazon workers trying to unionize so they can take bathroom breaks.

There’s nothing wrong with pursuing private space travel, even if it does give some serious James Bond movie villain vibes. You just know at least one of these guys has plans for a volcano base, laser sharks and a fluffy cat.

But while their money seems to be buying them a lot of happiness, they might want to look more to their 19th-century predecessors for an example of how to purchase a legacy.