{"id":10863,"date":"2026-05-26T00:02:05","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=10863"},"modified":"2026-05-25T15:59:50","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T20:59:50","slug":"glenn-harlan-reynolds-wish-if-only-jerry-pournelle-could-have-lived-to-see-todays-remarkable-progress-in-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/glenn-harlan-reynolds-wish-if-only-jerry-pournelle-could-have-lived-to-see-todays-remarkable-progress-in-space\/","title":{"rendered":"Glenn Harlan Reynolds\u2019 wish: If only Jerry Pournelle could have lived to see today\u2019s remarkable progress in space\u2028"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg<\/a><\/p>\n

Jerry Pournelle, a science fiction writer who also was devoted to championing scientific progress and space development, dreamed of what\u2019s now fast becoming a reality on and off the Earth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jerry Pournelle in 2005 (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sparked by his enthusiasm over the recent successful SpaceX Starship v.3 launch, Instapundit columnist and American legal scholar Glenn Harlan Reynolds has written a heartfelt column<\/a> paying tribute to the prescient vision of Jerry Pournelle.<\/p>\n

Pournelle, a Prometheus Best Novel winner, deserves to be remembered – and not only for his fiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was still a kid, I read Jerry\u2019s column \u201cA Step Farther Out\u201d in Galaxy magazine religiously. Jerry saw it all coming: vertical takeoff and landing spaceships, the need to lower costs to orbit, and the absolute necessity for both reusability and launch volume to make things cheap enough, and reliable enough, to build an interplanetary economy,\u201d Reynolds writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wrote about the immense resources of space (both in terms of energy and material), and the wide-open human future they could support. As the blurb<\/a> for a collection of his work published in 2022 says, \u201cIf you wanted a strategy for the technology of going to space in the 1970’s, 80’s and 90’s, Dr. Jerry Pournelle was your man.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s not a coincidence that Fallen Angels,<\/i><\/a> the 1992 Prometheus Best Novel winner that Pournelle co-wrote with Larry Niven and Michael Flynn, has a theme emphasizing the importance of science and technology and the need for free men and women to both defend and advance such progress to sustain our civilization.<\/p>\n

At the center of Fallen Angels<\/i> are two astronauts from a stranded and closed-down space station who fall to earth while on one of their desperate flights to beef up the station\u2019s diminishing gas supplies by scooping up nitrogen gases from the Earth\u2019s outer atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Jerry Pournelle (Photo courtesy of Arc Manor)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just as Pournelle\u2019s fictional characters are rational, reality-based heroes, Pournelle (1933-2017) certainly would have celebrated the ongoing human achievements of today\u2019s space engineers and astronauts as well as the entrepreneurial successes of Space X.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Pournelle during his heyday, Reynolds sees the significance and further potential from today\u2019s exciting space developments for a better and freer future for humanity.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are still bugs to work out, and capabilities to add, but what we saw on Friday was a full-fledged interplanetary spaceship,\u201d Reynolds writes in his column, which he posted on Instapundit..<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Glenn Harlan Reynolds (Creative Commons license)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cStarship v.3 is big enough to carry cargoes to the Moon and Mars\u2026 It will also support missions to asteroids, which are loaded with precious and valuable metals, carbon compounds, and other useful stuff\u2026. A moon base is practical with Starship.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Like Pournelle, Reynolds appreciates that politics remains a threat to continued human progress – and that freedom and free markets offer the best way to advance in space (and on Earth.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the mission concluded, the SpaceX crew was chanting \u201cUSA! USA!\u201d Jerry always said that it was nearly certain that space would ultimately be settled by humans, but that it would make a big difference which humans got there first,\u201d Reynolds writes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe USA is the planet\u2019s beacon of freedom and hope \u2014 and, frankly, the only country that could have supported the development of a company like SpaceX, with a freewheeling and creative yet utterly results-oriented culture. If we get there first, the coming millennium will look very different than it would if it was, say, China who got there first.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Despite all the genuine social, economic and political problems and challenges we continue to face in the 21st century, such progress is inspiring and heartening.<\/p>\n

Many people, including libertarians, still dream of a freer and better future for all as our species continues to advance farther on the new frontiers of our solar system.<\/p>\n

And those dreams are closer than ever to materializing, as Pournelle foresaw and as Reynolds reminds us.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

ABOUT THE LFS AND THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS<\/b><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us!<\/b> To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, \u00a0join<\/a> the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer international association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists understand that culture matters. We believe that literature and the arts can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future. In some ways, culture can be even more influential and powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, human dignity, individuality and peaceful choices.<\/p>\n

* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/b>For a full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 including in the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced \u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/a>\u00a0on the LFS website. This page includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of the 106 works that have won a Prometheus since 1979 fits the awards\u2019 distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies, Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog\u2019s\u00a0Video page.<\/a><\/p>\n

* Read \u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/a> an essay in the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/i>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society\u2019s Facebook page<\/a> for comments, updates and links to the latest Prometheus Blog posts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Michael Grossberg Jerry Pournelle, a science fiction writer who also was devoted to championing scientific progress and space development, dreamed of what\u2019s now fast becoming a reality on and off the Earth. Sparked by his enthusiasm over the recent successful SpaceX Starship v.3 launch, Instapundit columnist and American legal scholar Glenn Harlan Reynolds has … Continue reading Glenn Harlan Reynolds\u2019 wish: If only Jerry Pournelle could have lived to see today\u2019s remarkable progress in space\u2028<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[32,10,2803],"tags":[216,2859,17,2860,915,2861],"class_list":["post-10863","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-news","category-space-exploration","tag-fallen-angels","tag-glenn-harlan-reynolds","tag-jerry-pournelle","tag-space-development","tag-spacex","tag-vertical-liftoff"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-2Pd","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10863"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10875,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10863\/revisions\/10875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}