The Man Who Sold The Moon

Early Robert Heinlein! Always a great read, no matter where in his career you find yourself as you dig through  the gems of his literature.

I read this book not too long after watching the History Channel series, The Men Who Built America. Which is about how strong armed, cut-throat, ruthless, ambitious, and never-satisfied our turn of the century (the earlier one) entrepreneurs were. It chronicles the corporate lives of Cornelius “The Commodore” Vanderbilt, JP Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, and to some small extent, Tesla, Ford and Charles Schwab.

The fun thing is how people revere what these assholes did for American free market Capitalism. Which is to say, they forced federal regulation in a lot of areas. They also were key in bringing about labour unions, ending monopolies, and breaking ground on federal anti-trust lawsuits. Plus a few other things in terms of stock market and inner-company control were made illegal after these guys had their way. I mean, whoa, I know they were crooked back then, but to be the wealthiest humans in the entire world and battling like that, trying to end the other moguls? It was crazy!

How does that relate to this book? Well free market capitalism, when we can find loopholes in the federal government, really helps the rich get richer. But in this instance, the rich man, Delos David “D.D.” Harriman, isn’t out to make himself personally wealthy just for the fuck of it (like Steve Jobs). He is out to do it and raise enough money to get us to the moon. And eventually, get us to expand to more than just this tiny planet (which isn’t dying, by the way).

The concept of expansion, colonization in space is favourite of mine in Science Fiction, I feel we need to help support that. Companies like Planetary Resources backed by Google billionaires trying to expand our natural resources, Blue Origin backed by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and Red Bull with their Stratos jump are all examples of privately funded space exploration opportunities that provide more science and learning than NASA alone could ever dream to offer. And I like all that. And so does Robert Heinlein.

The difference is that he wrote this in 1949 before NASA was what we think of when we think space exploration. So he wrote about a corporate mogul, a real wealthy bastard swindling his way to get ownership rights to the land, and mineral rights, and a space craft, for the goddamn moon! Maybe it is difficult for some to put themselves in the position of how it could be exciting to try and claim the moon in the name of exploration and exploitation in the days before NASA, but not for me.

How does he do it? Simple. First there are some mergers and investors coming online with loads of more cash to support this venture and claim some part of the moon once they are there, plus corporate advertising giants and why not sell out to the media and take the highest bidding studio to make the documentary of the project? Then there are children. Like 40 million of them or whatever. He says if they each send a nickel to him, he’ll have their names individually engraved on a plaque that is going to be planted there as a memorial for the first ever lunar landing. But if they send 1 dollar, they get an autograph from the astronauts, plus other cheap swag! He neglects to mention this plague’s engravings are microscopic so as not to take up weight on the craft’s journey. He also sets up a non-profit organization, like National Geographic or B&MGF shit, which allows for a massive amount of money to roll in from people interesting in this project, and since it is led by the same tycoons all their work goes to it, but at the last moment the non-profit foundation makes a massive donation to the project. Awesome.

It is a future history tale, so there are chapters of other things going on, plus some corporate/federal regulation fights over patents that aren’t so pretty, including some pretty damn accurate conspiracy theories. Or at least, close to what we have seen in our history with some innovative minds *cough* Tesla! *cough*cough*.

I love American capitalism when it works this way, and I love people’s ambitions to get us off this fucking rock, before everyone goes mental. Let us expand! Let us conquer! And regardless of what that tree hugging hippie next to you says, don’t ever lose that ambition and drive to conquer all, it is our key to getting off this fucking rock and putting our roots in other places. Earth first, moon next, Mars after that, and later on, the rest of the stars!