On November 4, 1980, the sky fell on our heads. For us boomers, veterans of a once-in-a-lifetime defeat, the era of Gov Neolib began that day. Half a century later, Gov Neolib was entering a new phase that would lead it to the home stretch. It was then that an urgent campaign about space junk appeared in the mainstream media, as if this were a bigger problem than the chaos already on Earth, where the unprecedented degradation of the biosphere was getting worse by the day. They argued that space debris risked making Earth's orbit impassable because of collision hazards. There were millions of disparate objects circling the planet: old satellites, spent rocket stages, fragments from collisions or even explosions from burned-out and abandoned space stations, and a host of other, smaller bits and pieces. There were also said to be a few more or less preserved astronaut bodies, the result of nearly a century of orbital space invasion, although now the experimental space cleanup and funeral service promised to remedy this situation.

In fact, those who were most concerned were the techno-tycoons, who had contributed significantly to Earth's pollution in recent years, while also the most interested in escape routes off the planet.

The techno-tycoons, or tech bros, were a small circle of the world's wealthiest individuals who had initially built their power on information and communication technologies, and who later became the overlords of global platforms and, more generally, of multinational tech corporations. They were originally concentrated in the US, the great imperialist nation that once dominated the West, but later emerged elsewhere. At the beginning of the 21st century, the techno-tycoons' decision to engage in space activities appeared to many as little more than an extravagant whim, especially considering that some of them had personally inaugurated space tourism. Instead, it was a thoughtful, multifaceted and complex move with many implications. The economic aspect was certainly present, but it was also a kind of cover: in the pioneering era of the Cold War, the space industry had symbolized the power of the two dominant blocs in a bipolar world, and it would have been unthinkable, even in the West, to subcontract its essentials to private companies. But by then, these limits no longer made sense. Despite the precarious state of the biosphere and the increasing density of space junk, it was permissible for techno-tycoons and multinational corporations to put numerous constellations of thousands of satellites into orbit. Their goal was to "improve the internet" and connect every square meter of the earth's surface, and thus controlling it.

Launching space tourism - reserved for a small elite, given the absurd ecological cost per passenger - was not considered a mere caprice, but a serious business project. No surprise that, despite the historic feat of sending a human crew to the moon more than half a century earlier, NASA was no longer able to send astronauts to a space station orbiting at an altitude of only 300 km without relying on private companies.

This is how the techno-tycoons diversified into space profits. They could be trusted as far as profits were concerned because of the lightning-fast way they had amassed their fortunes. It was not only financial capital but also the personal power these characters had acquired, reaching a level of influence comparable to political representatives of large states. Such was their influence that Presidents and heads of government welcomed them as equals, implicitly recognizing their power and importance. Politicians’ tenure in power and their wealth were often more limited than that of the techno-tycoons. Indeed, the large tech platforms had become essential cogs in the regulation and neural control of populations and had an infinitely wider reach than the borders of nation-states. The techno-tycoons became the winners of this ruthless competition in colonizing the biohypermedia pluriverse. Their way of acting in the biohypermedia environment had much in common with the Conquistadores who pillaged and massacred the American continent. But Columbus and the Conquistadores, payrolled by the monarchs and economic powers of their time, depended on the latter, while the techno-tycoons talked a good game, invoking the "lethargy" and inadequacy of old state institutions in their campaigns of conquest and extraction of value from human behavior. Under the guise of technological disruption, they made the neural control exercised by their platforms the linchpin of a new phase: neurocapitalism. Little did they know, however, that they would be the protagonists of one of the last stages of capital. Of course, the autonomy with which the techno-tycoons sought to establish new norms and their ambition to assume roles as global rulers of information and consumerism generated occasional friction with some state powers.

Sometimes after years of litigation in which they employed legions of professionals, they could be forced to pay fines that, however steep, did not dent their financial empires. Long gone were the days when states still had the political power to undo technological monopolies with anti-trust laws. One could therefore easily suspect that the space activities and projects of the techno-tycoons implied more ambitious purposes, far beyond the usual pursuit of profit. Aware of the gravity of the global situation they were beginning the search for other material universes - asteroids, satellites, planets, etc. - as potential sources of extractive resources or destinations for human migration; a way to continue to exert their influence, as had happened earlier with biohypermedia. Space tourism, the ability to conduct inhabited flights or that of firing satellites in bursts, were only the tip of the iceberg.