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"When a place gets crowded enough to require ID's, social collapse is not far away. It is time to go elsewhere. The best thing about space travel is that it made it possible to go elsewhere."

-- from "The Notebooks of Lazarus Long" (1978) by Robert Heinlein (1907-1988), pioneering libertarian science fiction writer.

Liberty and space travel: three articles

First Private Space Venture Ends With a Libertarian Surprise

by James W. Harris

This may just be the most important news event we've ever written about in the Liberator Online.

As you may know, on Monday June 21, 2004, history was made when the first privately-funded space ship, SpaceShipOne, successfully flew into space. (And it did so, incidentally, at a fraction of the cost of government efforts: The $20 million SpaceShipOne program cost only about 5 percent as much as a single NASA shuttle mission.)

It is impossible to overstate the importance of this glorious achievement. At last, we may be on the verge of seeing space exploration liberated from the government -- which has monopolized it and crippled it for decades -- and opened to the private sector, where the same ingenuity and innovation that has given us so many other low-cost, high-tech miracles can bring the unimaginable benefits of space travel to mankind.

Praise to Burt Rutan, designer of SpaceShipOne; to Paul Allen of Microsoft fame, who financed the effort; and to Mike Melvill, the 62-year-old test pilot who flew more than 62 miles above the earth. And to all others involved in this historic feat.

The next step for the team is to see if SpaceShipOne can carry three people into space twice within two weeks. If so, they will win the $10 million Ansari X Prize, funded by a group of private space enthusiasts.

But regardless of whether SpaceShipOne wins or not, it has already kicked the doors wide open for private space exploration. At least 27 other organizations are competing for the Ansari X Prize. We are now officially at the dawn of a new era for humankind: an era of mass space travel, exploration, and manufacturing.

UPI reporter Irene Mona Klotz caught the essence of the story:

"It is not for the money these teams have labored for years to come up with a better way to travel to space; it is to demonstrate -- and perhaps eventually cash in on -- the fact that there may very well be a better, less-expensive, more-accessible way to travel to space than what government-funded programs have been serving up for more than four decades."

And so did this story in the Christian Science Monitor:

"When SpaceShipOne split the clear California skies to cross the threshold of space Monday morning, the rumble that echoed down toward the Joshua trees of the Mojave Desert was no mere sonic boom. It was a seismic shift in the history of human exploration... [T]his much seems certain: Space is now open for business."

Finally, there was this wonderful libertarian moment immediately after the flight. While astronaut Mike Melvill stood atop SpaceShipOne in triumph, a member of the Western Libertarian Alliance organization handed Melvill a large poster reading:

"SpaceShipOne GovernmentZero"

Mike held it up for all to see, and gave a "thumbs-up" signal to the crowd.

It was a great libertarian touch to one of the great liberating events in history.

(Here's a link to a photo of Melvill holding the sign. Photo by Bill Hunt. Scroll to bottom of page to see photo: http://www.thedigitalbits.com/articles/spaceshipone/flightday.html )

(Sources: Christian Science Monitor and UPI:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0622/p01s02-usgn.html

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20040604-121009-7639r )

From THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, June 23, 2004 / Vol. 9, No. 11

* * *

Victorious Space Entrepreneurs Must Now Conquer Gov't Regulation

by James W. Harris

It's official: you can now buy tickets for an upcoming flight into space.

A new frontier for all mankind was blasted wide open Monday October 4, when the private spaceship SpaceShipOne reached a record altitude of 69.7 miles above the earth, then safely returned.

In doing so, the SpaceShipOne team won the $10 million Ansari X-Prize for being the first private company to send a manned rocket into space twice within 14 days.

The goal of the X-Prize was to encourage private commercial spaceflight -- and now that dream is rocketing forward.

SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan says now his goal is to develop a space tourism industry at least 100 times safer than NASA's projects -- one that will also be safer than the first commercial airliners.

Virgin Atlantic airlines owner and renowned entrepreneur Richard Branson -- who several years ago said he was a libertarian -- has formed a partnership with SpaceShipOne and hopes to have a commercial spaceflight venture, Virgin Galactic, in operation by 2007, with multiple "spaceliners" and bases in several countries.

Indeed, he's already selling tickets -- and people are buying. The cost for the inaugural trip? Around $200,000 per person. Branson and Rutan both plan to be on that first flight.

Branson says their new venture will launch thousands of people into space in the next few years.

"We've had about five million hits on the Internet, of which 5,000 people said they'd be willing to pay the kind of money we're talking about," Branson said.

Branson said the initial high cost of tickets will quickly drop as the technology matures, just as has happened in so many other fields.

"It's an adventure where we hope to make money, because I don't think space has a future unless people make money," Branson said. "And the money we make will all be plowed back into developing space travel further."

Ironically, the principle challenges this new generation of space entrepreneurs face could well be government-erected barriers.

Speaking before a U.S. House of Representatives committee in June 26, 2001, the Cato Institute's Edward L. Hudgins made this clear:

"America's general regulatory regime -- and that part of it in particular that governs commercial space activities -- is the principal barrier to the expansion of those activities. If such a regime were in place earlier in this century, civil aviation would not have developed as it did and air travel might be as rare as space travel. If such a regime had been applied two decades ago to emerging personal computer, software and Internet firms, the communications and information revolution would have been stillborn."

However, we don't think anything will hold back humankind's expansion into space -- not even bureaucracy. This is indeed a dream whose time has come.

(Sources: http://www.spaceflightnow.com/ss1/041004branson.html

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world_business/view/108772/1/.html

 http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-eh062601.html )

From THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, October 6, 2004 / Vol. 9, No. 17

* * *

Space Hotels: Private Sector Taking Over Space Exploration

by James W. Harris

Forget NASA. The future of space exploration is in the hands of the private sector. And it's coming sooner than you may expect.

That's the message of a fast-growing and well-capitalized group of space entrepreneurs.

In 2004 President Bush announced plans to send astronauts to the moon by 2020 -- more than half a century after Neil Armstrong first landed there.

Ho-hum, says the private sector.

"NASA is increasingly irrelevant," says James W. Benson, president of Benson Space, one of the emerging space tourism companies. "There is no way this country is going to support a $103 billion Apollo-on-steroids return to the moon."

Instead, the new generation of space entrepreneurs are busy -- right now -- with plans for space tours, orbiting space hotels and, yes, even moon landings.

Next year, Virgin Galactic -- headed by Sir Richard Branson, a self-declared libertarian -- plans to begin test flights. They hope to carry customers into space in late 2009 or early 2010. And customers are ready. Virgin Galactic says it has taken over $20 million in deposits from about 150 people.

Virgin Galactic is also negotiating with Robert Bigelow -- founder of the Budget Suites hotel chain -- to create orbiting hotels. Bigelow has already launched a one-third scale inflatable module, now orbiting the Earth every 96 minutes. By 2012 Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch full-size space accommodations. Bigelow has pledged half a billion dollars to back the project.

Still another company, Space Adventures, has already put five customers into orbit aboard Russian Soyuz capsules.

And what about that walk on the moon? Space Adventures is already seeking a customer for that. Projected cost: $100 million.

So... in 2020, when Bush's NASA astronaut finally gets to the moon, he may be welcomed by a crowd of cheering tourists, who will take him into their Budget Suites moon hotel for a good meal and a bath, before sending him safely and comfortably back to NASA in a First Class seat aboard the very latest in private space ships.

(Sources: * http://www.theage.com.au/news/World/Space-tourism-set-to-liftoff/2007/05/29/1180205216639.html

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/must-read/57516.html

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-05/28/content_6164470.htm )

From THE LIBERATOR ONLINE, May 31, 2007 / Vol. 12, No. 11

 

 

 

 

 

 


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