{"id":6357,"date":"2023-09-09T00:12:38","date_gmt":"2023-09-09T05:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/?p=6357"},"modified":"2023-09-09T17:10:19","modified_gmt":"2023-09-09T22:10:19","slug":"from-the-heinlein-trust-archives-robert-heinleins-optimistic-vision-of-the-future-and-expansion-through-the-solar-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/from-the-heinlein-trust-archives-robert-heinleins-optimistic-vision-of-the-future-and-expansion-through-the-solar-system\/","title":{"rendered":"From the Heinlein Prize Trust archive: Robert Heinlein’s optimistic vision of the future and expansion through the solar system"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Heinlein was a lifelong optimist.<\/p>\n

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Robert Heinlein (Photo courtesy of the Heinlein Trust)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cColumbus sailed west for spices \u2013 and came back with Boulder Dam, Detroit and the Empire State Building. Every great new adventure of the human race has produced totally unexpected new profits,” he wrote in a 1947 letter, which the Heinlein Prize Trust’s primary trustee Art Dula shared recently with the LFS.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe same inquisitive, questing, practical spirit that crossed the plains and conquered the air will turn up new wrinkles to make space and space flight pay,” Heinlein wrote in the letter, which Dula read from and commented on recently during the 43rd annual Prometheus awards ceremony.<\/p>\n

“But what of that. You and I would go if there were never any dollar-and-cents reward in it. There is the greatest reason of all \u2013 the itch to go take a look.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Robert Heinlein in 1929 as a student military cadet at the U.S. Naval Academy (Photo courtesy of Heinlein Trust)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here are more inspiring words from Heinlein’s visionary letter, which Dula resurrected from the vast digitized Heinlein archives:<\/p>\n

\u201cNew horizons, new lands, strange places, adventure and wonder. The long, long trail of the human race, our monkey curiosity, scientific zeal, boyish delight in the need to explore. It\u2019s stronger than the hunger of the belly or of the lions; it brought us down out of the trees, made us experiment with fire, took us out over the frightening uncharted oceans, and up into the stratosphere- and now it calls us out in the depths of space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd out we\u2019ll go, with Galileo and Eric the Red and Columbus and Peary cheering us on, rooting for us \u2013 from the parched, airless soil of the Moon we\u2019ll try the mists of Venus and then to the thin, cold air of Mars, and on out, even to the lonely night of Pluto \u2013 someday, even to the stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Virginia and Robert Heinlein, visiting a NASA space capsule (Photo courtesy of Heinlein Prize Trust)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cBut I don\u2019t expect to see the last,” Heinlein added.<\/p>\n

:I\u2019ll be happy enough to see the headline in the (local Los Angeles newspaper) Herald-Express: \u00a0\u201cRadio Contact with First Moon Party.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Robert Heinlein in the 1980s (Photo courtesy of Heinlein Trust)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Note: Heinlein (1907-1988) lived to see the first man on the moon in 1969, the Space Shuttle missions and the development of the International Space Station.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

* Read the Prometheus Blog appreciation<\/a> of “Requiem,” the 2003 Prometheus Hall of Fame winner, about an aging tycoon using private enterprise to fly to the moon, realizing a lifelong dream.<\/p>\n

Here are the Prometheus-blog Appreciations of many of Heinlein’s other Prometheus winners, all Hall of Fame inductees: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress,<\/a> Stranger in a Strange Land<\/a>, Time Enough for Love,<\/a> Red Planet,<\/a> Methuselah’s Children<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>“Coventry<\/a>” and Citizen of the Galaxy.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

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

IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE:
\n<\/strong>
\n<\/u><\/strong>* Prometheus winners:\u00a0<\/strong>For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees \u2013 for the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards \u2013 visit the enhanced\u00a0Prometheus Awards page\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to the full set of published appreciation-reviews of past winners.<\/p>\n

* Read\u00a0\u201cThe Libertarian History of Science Fiction,\u201d<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0an essay in 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 evolution of the modern genre.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0Watch\u00a0 <\/strong>videos <\/strong>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.<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

*\u00a0Join us<\/strong>! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards,\u00a0join\u00a0<\/strong><\/a>the Libertarian Futurist Society (LFS), a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf\/fantasy fans.<\/p>\n

Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters! We understand that the arts and literature can be vital, and in some ways even more powerful than politics in the long run, by sparking innovation, better ideas, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other\u2019s rights, individuality and human dignity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robert Heinlein was a lifelong optimist. \u201cColumbus sailed west for spices \u2013 and came back with Boulder Dam, Detroit and the Empire State Building. Every great new adventure of the human race has produced totally unexpected new profits,” he wrote in a 1947 letter, which the Heinlein Prize Trust’s primary trustee Art Dula shared recently … Continue reading From the Heinlein Prize Trust archive: Robert Heinlein’s optimistic vision of the future and expansion through the solar system<\/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":[32,2080,1860],"tags":[2056,318,2111,2097,2096,2079,2098,21,924,503],"class_list":["post-6357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-updates","category-award-presenter-speech","category-robert-heinlein","tag-art-dula","tag-columbus","tag-empire-state-building","tag-eric-the-red","tag-galileo","tag-heinlein-trust","tag-peary","tag-robert-heinlein","tag-space-travel","tag-the-moon"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pe8nGl-1Ex","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357","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=6357"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6487,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6357\/revisions\/6487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lfs.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}