When We Walked on the Moon

[Ed Hudgins]

When We Walked on the Moon

by Edward Hudgins

July 17, 2009 -- As a child I was fascinated by astronomy and space, and I hoped to live to see the day when men would travel to the Moon. In 1969 I managed to snag a summer high school internship at Goddard Space Flight Center in Beltsville, Maryland. Thus I was able to be an extremely small part of one of the greatest human achievements when, on July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first human beings to land and walk on the lunar surface.

I was like a kid in a solar-system-sized candy store! I was able to watch the launch and splashdown from the control room; they let a kid like me just walk right in and sit in the visitors' gallery! I was able to follow every step of the Apollo 11 mission; I still have my thick copy of the flight plan, labeled AS-506-/CSM-107/LM-5, and a hundred high-resolution lunar mapping photos.

Forty years later I reflect on the two meanings, one political, the other philosophical, of what happened on that "Where were you?" date.

From the Moon to the Mud

The Moon landing was spearheaded by NASA, a government agency created for political purposes and national prestige as well as for scientific discoveries. There were several reasons for its success in reaching the Moon ahead of the Soviets. NASA had a very focused mission and definite deadline. It had as much taxpayer money as it needed. And it had personnel from the private sector as well as the military who were committed to the mission and willing to heroically give their all to achieve it. These people deserve our praise and admiration.

But in the decades since the landing NASA has become bloated, bureaucratic, and mired in the mud of parochial political concerns of politicians. This is the fate of all government agencies, no matter the quality of the individuals working for them.

Consider the example of NASA's current principal project. The space station was originally proposed in the mid-1980s with a price-tag of about $8 billion and a projected completion date in the early 1990s. Instead, with redesigns and even downsizing, it will not be completed until 2010, at a cost of well over $100 billion. Perhaps the goal was as much to keep money flowing to contractors as to build a space station. Most scientists see little value in the station compared to other possible uses for that money. And, incredibly, NASA is now planning to de-orbit the station and let it burn up in the atmosphere in 2016, only five years after completion.

Just the kind of astronomical waste you'd expect from government!

Enterprise in Orbit

NASA has failed, as it had to, to commercialize access to space—that is, to bring down the costs and improve the quality in the way the private sector has done for cars, air travel, televisions, personal computers, and cells phones.

But private entrepreneurs have been able to overcome many barriers placed in their way by governments, and in recent years have begun to provide access to space in the same ways that innovators in the past have provided so many other goods and services. In 2004 Burt Rutan won the private $10 million Ansari X-Prize by building a craft that could travel into space with a crew capacity of three, twice in a two-week period. He's now working with airline and railroad entrepreneur Richard Branson to provide sub-orbital flights to the public at a price that will allow many people to venture outside of our atmosphere.

Elon Musk, through his company SpaceX, has designed and built private rockets from the ground up and recently launched a satellite. Robert Bigelow, through his company Bigelow Aerospace, has launched a one-third-size version of an innovative space station and plans to launch a full-sized model soon for a fraction of the cost of NASA's orbiting white elephant.

Such entrepreneurs are creating the infrastructure that will make us a space-faring civilization and should provide the paths back to the Moon and onto Mars.

The Leap for Mankind

The Moon landing also highlights two views of humans and our place in the universe. When Apollo 11 touched down in the Sea of Tranquility, the United States was in turmoil not only about then-current political issues like the Vietnam War and civil rights, but also about the means and ends of human life. As Ayn Rand noted at the time, Apollo represented the view that the human mind is our unique tool for survival and for flourishing, and that joy and happiness from our achievements, most dramatically represented by the Moon landing, are our proper goals.

Another view, represented by the counter-culture of the time, played down or rejected reason in favor of more shallow emotional indulgence, questioned the value of technology, and even placed the environment on par with or above humans in value.

Today the battle of these two visions continues, with proponents on both sides and many individuals with minds schizophrenically in both camps. Many young people who were not born when a Saturn V rocket carried Armstrong and Aldrin to the Moon love the products of the human mind—laptops, iPhones, the Internet. But many also feel guilty about the fact that technology, by definition, is altering the environment and material resources in order to serve human needs. They feel guilty about being human. They are obsessed with "going green," not simply to insure that air is breathable and water drinkable for humans but also to minimize the impact of humans on the world. This is an attitude that will keep us in the mud!

But the great human achievements that are yet to come—returning to the Moon, landing on Mars, terraforming that planet's atmosphere to make it into another habitat for humanity—will require a human life with all its requirements as the standard of value.

Neil Armstrong's first words when stepping onto the surface of the Moon, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," well expressed the spirit of that mission. And those of us who shared that spirit were, in spirit, on the Moon with Armstrong and Aldrin that day forty years ago.



For further reading:

*Ayn Rand, "Apollo 11." The Objectivist, September 1969. Republished in The Voice of Reason, 1990.

*Ayn Rand, "Apollo and Dionysis." The Objectivist, December 1969. Reprinted in Return of the Primitive, 1999.

*Edward Hudgins, editor, Space: The Free-Market Frontier. The Cato Institute, 2002.

*Edward Hudgins, "Celebrating Apollo 11's Sense of Life." July 20, 2004.

*Edward Hudgins, "Apollo 11 on Human Achievement Day." July 20, 2005.

*Edward Hudgins, "A Voyage Across the Final Frontier: Cosmos: A Personal Voyage." The New Individualist, July-August 2007.

*Edward Hudgins, "Individualism in Orbit: Morality for the High Frontier," The New Individualist, July-August 2007.

[Judith]

And, incredibly, NASA is now planning to de-orbit the station and let it burn up in the atmosphere in 2016, only five years after completion.

!!!!!

Uh -- why?

I do hope, even though I won't live to see it, that the private sector manages to open up space. I think it's the only real hope for freedom. People need to be able to get away from each other when they disagree; otherwise they kill each other. It's why no-fault divorce by either party to a marriage should be easily available; it's preferable to murder. Space, as the old Star Trek TV show said, is the final frontier, and it's pretty damned big; easy to find a place of one's own...

Judith

[tjohnson]

But in the decades since the landing NASA has become bloated, bureaucratic, and mired in the mud of parochial political concerns of politicians. This is the fate of all government agencies, no matter the quality of the individuals working for them.

Why is this the fate of all government agencies? Is the answer to get rid of all agencies or perhaps there is something wrong with the people running them?

[Ed Hudgins]

Gen S - Governemnt agencies are not owned by private partis who put their own assets at rick when producing goods and services. They receive their funds through a political process. All government agencies are subject to more legal limiteds, requirements, hearings, etc. than private businesses. Workers don't have a relatively free hand to run agencies as they see fit the way entrepreneurs can run businesses.

See Mises' short book Bureaucracy for the best treatment.

Judith - I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

[Selene]

GS:

Government agencies, as Ed explained, have no selfish profit motive, nor does a government agency produce anything.

These agencies have no reason to exist other than to perpetuate themselves and make up more unproductive work to do.

For example, in the State of Florida, the Child Support Enforcement Bureau could not get out of their own way so they

hired an outside hit squad to collect. We used to call that strong arm extortion. The state of Florida paid a firm,

who I am sure was pure as the driven snow and had no connections or made any contributions to anyone in State government,

approximately 8 million dollars and they collected 2.5 million.

I speak from experience, when they stupidly gave me real power in a City agency, my office was looked at as

a place to dump political patronage folks. Kinda like the Public Affairs scum that inhabit government and government embedded

corporations today.

Fortunately, for the taxpayers, I was not looking to make a career out of government. Many family and friends pushed me to take

a civil service examine and get a civil service title so I could not get fired.

At any rate, I just decided to get things done. I looked for all the problem folks in the department and found out that most of

them had specific real life issues that were time related.

I basically made private agreements with them and signed their time cards that said 9 AM to 5 PM. Meanwhile, in the real world of our

office because we became a team. Some folks worked from 7-3 some from 11 AM to 7 PM and lo and behold, we were a dedicated, efficient,

happy office that was "covered from 7AM to 7 PM.

We achieved excellence, but all we really produced was decentralizing decision making down to the individual business and or homeowner which is where it was originally.

Adam

[Judith]

Judith - I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

I'd like to see the development of habitable space stations, so there could be an unlimited number of them, and people could form as many independent societies as they wished. There would be literally no limit to the number of splinter societies that could form, with peaceful coexistence and commerce between them, and one could simply ignore those one didn't like. Decent self-defense capabilities, coalitions among small societies to prevent aggression by big outsiders -- it could work.

Judith

Edited July 19, 2009 by Judith

[tjohnson]

Gen S - Governemnt agencies are not owned by private partis who put their own assets at rick when producing goods and services. They receive their funds through a political process. All government agencies are subject to more legal limiteds, requirements, hearings, etc. than private businesses. Workers don't have a relatively free hand to run agencies as they see fit the way entrepreneurs can run businesses.

See Mises' short book Bureaucracy for the best treatment.

Judith - I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

But surely you're not suggesting that all activities should be motivated by profit?

[Selene]

Gen S - Governemnt agencies are not owned by private partis who put their own assets at rick when producing goods and services. They receive their funds through a political process. All government agencies are subject to more legal limiteds, requirements, hearings, etc. than private businesses. Workers don't have a relatively free hand to run agencies as they see fit the way entrepreneurs can run businesses.

See Mises' short book Bureaucracy for the best treatment.

Judith - I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

But surely you're not suggesting that all activities should be motivated by profit?

I am.

[tjohnson]

But surely you're not suggesting that all activities should be motivated by profit?

I am.

What about the military, should they be run by a private corporation?

[BaalChatzaf]

But surely you're not suggesting that all activities should be motivated by profit?

Not necessarily monetary profit, but surely from gain of some sort.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Selene]

GS:

We're shooting for a broader market share - pick one.

What profit will a person have if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life?

"For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?

Profit is a broad concept to define would you not agree? A person can profit from his humility...yes.

Adam

Edited July 19, 2009 by Selene

[Ed Hudgins]

Might as well highlight this piece again so we can celebrate human achievement!

[9thdoctor]

I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

Ed’s Martial Plan!

[BaalChatzaf]

I want to convert Mars into another habitat for humanity, a libertarian one!

Ed's Martial Plan!

Mars is barely possible to terraform. Don't hold your breath until people are able to live there on a long term basis. Earth would be a much better libertarian habitat, don't you think?

Ba'al Chatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

delete duplicate

Edited July 21, 2010 by BaalChatzaf

[BaalChatzaf]

I saw a commentary by Bill Whittle on PJTV recently. He likened the Apollo Project to a space venture that was somehow snatched from the 21-st century and brought back to the mid 20-th century. He said it was a magnificent venture even if government sponsored and financed, but it was doomed to failure in the long term sense precisely because it was government sponsored. He said in the future private firms will power our return to the Moon and when that happens we will finally succeed. I thought that was a rather astute observation.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[Ed Hudgins]

Baal - I recommend Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars as the best book that sets out how to get to the Red Planet for a fraction of the NASA cost, who we can survive there, and the science of terraforming Mars.

And thanks 9th Dr. for posting the video. I remember the landing vividly to this day!

[sbeaulieu]

I saw a commentary by Bill Whittle on PJTV recently. He likened the Apollo Project to a space venture that was somehow snatched from the 21-st century and brought back to the mid 20-th century. He said it was a magnificent venture even if government sponsored and financed, but it was doomed to failure in the long term sense precisely because it was government sponsored. He said in the future private firms will power our return to the Moon and when that happens we will finally succeed. I thought that was a rather astute observation.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Ba'al,

I agree that private firms are the way to go. Virgin Galactic is pioneering this sector.

Virgin Galactic

~ Shane

[BaalChatzaf]

Baal - I recommend Robert Zubrin's The Case for Mars as the best book that sets out how to get to the Red Planet for a fraction of the NASA cost, who we can survive there, and the science of terraforming Mars.

And thanks 9th Dr. for posting the video. I remember the landing vividly to this day!

I have my doubts about terraforming Mars. We can't even terraform Earth.

Mars is basically a looser:

1. Its gravity is insufficient to hold onto enough water and air.

2. It lacks a magnetic field strong enough to shelter Mars from the highly charged particles eminating from the Sun. The only way humans could survive on Mars is to live underground.

At one time Mars was alive. Now it is dead and blasted by solar radiation.

If we have to spend the money, better to make use of the Moon. It is closer, it can be partly supported from Earth (it is under a week of travel time) and it has a shallower gravity well than Mars. The Moon is a good place to build large spacecraft and its dark side is excellent as a place to build observatories in all spectra. The dark side is not plagued by Earth shine and half the month it is pitch dark. Great seeing for astronomers.

Ba'al Chatzaf