When Charles Barkley Roasted People for Spending $250,000 to Travel Beyond the Atmosphere

Charles Barkley has never been one to hold back his opinions, and that extends beyond basketball. Despite his fame and wealth, Chuck likes to live a simple life. While he enjoys the finer things in life, as he should, he knows where to draw a line. For example, Chuck isn’t like other millionaires who dream of space travel.

Over the last decade, there have been a lot of breakthroughs in space travel. With several private companies joining the race, going into space as a tourist has been made possible. In Chuck’s opinion, that’s just stupid.

During an appearance on Jimmy Fallon’s show in 2015, he was asked for his take on people traveling to space. Just the idea of it baffles Chuck. He simply can’t understand why one would like to go to space. Outside of the curiosity aspect, the price a person has to pay also confuses him. He said, “I saw people paying like $250k to go to space. Who the hell wanna go to space?”

When the host tried to explain to him why space travel is a big deal, Chuck turned his focus to New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. He said that he’d rather visit these places than waste a quarter of a million dollars on space travel. “That’s just stupid,” Barkley concluded.

Chuck has made a lot of money over the last four decades. However, he is very careful about how he spends his money. Unlike Chuck, his best friend, Shaquille O’Neal, isn’t stringent with his money. The big fella likes to enjoy the luxuries of life with his hard-earned money. More importantly, he isn’t against the idea of space travel.

Shaquille O’Neal partnered with Blue Origin

The company Blue Origin runs a nonprofit called Club for the Future. Their mission is to inspire the next generation to take an interest in space and get them involved in space-related activities. When Shaq got to know about this, he decided to partner with them via his Big Chicken.

In 2024, Big Chicken invited guests to draw their vision of the future on postcards. Those postcards were then sent to space on Blue Origin’s flight and were later returned to the creator of the postcards. What made the activity special is that the postcards were marked “flown to space,” in the hope of inspiring young minds.

Big Chicken’s CEO Josh Halpern said, “Our partnerships with Blue Origin and Club for the Future are an integral part of bringing Shaquille’s vision of BIG dreams and BIG fun to life for our brand. This new activity will inspire the next generation and foster a BIG sense of wonder and possibility.”

Since Shaq is so invested in the idea of space travel, it’s possible he might hop on one of the flights and take a trip to the upper atmosphere.