For a good 40 years – between 1957 and 1997 – the premise of Robert\u00a0Heinlein’s 1940 short story “Requiem” looked dated and quaint, almost\u00a0laughable.\u00a0 Private space programs?\u00a0 A tycoon flying to the moon?\u00a0Absurd!\u00a0 For those were the decades in which everyone was sure that\u00a0space programs had to be vast government-run leviathans.<\/p>\n
The Old Man had the last laugh.\u00a0 In the new millennium government-run\u00a0spaceflight is moribund; all the action is at companies like SpaceX\u00a0and Blue Origin. It is now the era of government-run-space programs that is\u00a0beginning to look quaint, as the political will to push them evaporated\u00a0with the end of Cold War competition in 1992.<\/p>\n
But this story, and the related “The Man Who Sold The Moon”, resembles\u00a0today’s reality in a way that is more than coincidence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n It is no\u00a0secret that the billionares behind 21st century private space are all\u00a0fans of classic science fiction for whome the character of Delos\u00a0Harriman was a role model.\u00a0 Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and their\u00a0handful of near-peers are intentionally living Harriman’s dream,\u00a0and aren’t even a bit shy of admitting it to anyone who asks them.<\/p>\n That makes this story important!\u00a0 When and if future historians look\u00a0for the root of the second wave of human enterprise in space, they’re\u00a0going to find it here.\u00a0 Heinlein’s views about the importance of space\u00a0exploration to the future of our species are well known; had he lived\u00a0to see this, probably would have considered this the most important\u00a0consequence of his work.<\/p>\n As for libertarian content, we can do no better than to relay the\u00a0quote that forms the emotional hinge of the story:<\/p>\n “It’s neither your business nor the business of this damn\u00a0paternalistic government to tell a man not to risk his life doing what\u00a0he really wants to do.”<\/p>\n That’s the Robert Heinlein who would exert a shaping influence on\u00a0libertarianism two decades later talking. The obstacles in this story\u00a0are not technology or Harriman’s own failing health, they are a kind\u00a0of government overreach that is, alas, more plausible now than it was\u00a0when Heinlein wrote the story.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Delos Harriman makes it to the Moon, knowing full well\u00a0the trip will probably kill him.\u00a0 His end is triumphant, not only\u00a0because he finally achieves his lifelong dream but because he\u00a0successfully asserts his right to choose his own destiny.\u00a0 And\u00a0in that is a message that shines through all the dated details\u00a0of the story.<\/p>\n Note: Robert Heinlein (1907-1988), a mentor to several generations of younger sf writers, ultimately became the author most recognized by the Prometheus Awards, with a record seven awards as of 2020.<\/p>\n * Coming up soon on the Prometheus Blog:\u00a0<\/strong>An Appreciation of Vernor Vinge\u2019s \u201cThe Ungoverned\u201d the 2004\u00a0<\/span>Prometheus\u00a0<\/em>Hall of Fame winner.<\/em><\/p>\n * See related\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>introductory essay<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0about the LFS\u2019 40th\u00a0<\/sup>anniversary retrospective series of Appreciations of past Prometheus Awards winners, with an overview of the awards\u2019 four-decade history.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n *\u00a0Other Prometheus winners:<\/strong>\u00a0For a full list of winners \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the recently updated and enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 on the LFS website.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n * Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0 an essay in the June 2020 issue of the international magazine\u00a0Quillette<\/em>\u00a0that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf\/fantasy in the modern genre.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n *\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit volunteer association of libertarian sf\/fantasy fans and freedom-lovers. Here\u2019s the Prometheus Blog appreciation for \u201cRequiem,\u201d Robert Heinlein\u2019s short story, the 2003 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner for Best Classic Fiction. By Eric S. Raymond For a good 40 years – between 1957 and 1997 – the premise of Robert\u00a0Heinlein’s 1940 short story “Requiem” looked dated and quaint, almost\u00a0laughable.\u00a0 Private space programs?\u00a0 A tycoon … Continue reading Tycoon flying to the moon? Private space programs have the last laugh, inspired by Robert Heinlein\u2019s \u201cRequiem,\u201d the 2003 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner<\/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":[43,2353,160,8,1860],"tags":[916,919,917,918,264,914,21,915],"class_list":["post-2713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-appreciations","category-book-reviews","category-hall-of-fame","category-review","category-robert-heinlein","tag-blue-origin","tag-delos-harriman","tag-elon-musk","tag-jeff-bezos","tag-private-space-enterprise","tag-requiem","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-spacex"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-HL","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713","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=2713"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7505,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2713\/revisions\/7505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/220px-Requiem-heinlein-cover-202x300.jpg?resize=202%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/heinlein-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/a>Other works inducted into the Hall of Fame include his classic bestselling novels The Moon is a Harsh Mistress<\/em> (1983) and Stranger in a Strange Land<\/em> (in 1987), the novel Red Planet<\/em> (in 1996), the novel Methuselah’s Children<\/em> (in 1997), the novel Time Enough for Love<\/em>\u00a0(in 1998), \u00a0and the story Coventry<\/em> (in 2017.)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lfs.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/cropped-lfs-logo.png?resize=248%2C123&ssl=1\"){kind=logo}
<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\nLibertarian futurists believe cultural change is as (or more) vital as political change in achieving universal individual rights and a better world (perhaps eventually, worlds) for all.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"