We argue two things in this book. One, space travel is vital and beneficial to human well-being. Two, it should be done privately; the state should be kept as far from this initiative as possible, ideally, totally.1 These two principles inspire this book. We believe that an overwhelming majority of citizens will wonder if we have gone completely bonkers. Our critics will tend to dismiss both propositions out of hand. So, what persuades us to favor these themes? Our main motivation for the first is love for human beings.2
Why spaceâit is so ⊠well, âOUT THERE.â As Star Trek would have it, explorers are driven âto go where no man3 has gone before.â That, alone, suffices. Then, there are the more practical considerations. Moving into space will be profitable. We will learn new technologies which will endow the remaining earthlings with electrifying spillover advantages. For example, will near or actual weightlessness cure diseases? Will resources be discovered in the heavenly bodies (apart from the Moonâs green cheese) that will open new horizons?
We find our second theme, that efforts in this regard be undertaken by market participants, not crony capitalists supported via compulsory tax payments, similarly compelling. Real entrepreneurs throw the dice with their own funds, or those voluntarily entrusted to them. They coerce no one. Why this limitation? Would not our first goal, space exploration, be better served by government itself, given its taxing power or, at the very least, via a partnership between the state and private interests? Absolutely not! Says Rothbard (2015):
The myth has arisen that government research is made necessary by our technological age, because only planned, directed, large-scale âteamâ research can produce important inventions or develop them properly. The day of the individual or small-scale inventor is supposedly over and done with. And the strong inference is that government , as potentially the âlargest-scaleâ operator, must play a leading role in even non-military scientific research. This common myth has been completely exploded by the researches of John Jewkes , David Sawers , and Richard Stillerman in their highly important recent work.4
Pretty much anything touched by government comes with fatal flaws starting with corruption and compulsion. Eliminating state involvement in space frees people rather than limits them. Besides, the ruling powers notoriously mismanage all enterprises.5 It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because that very incompetence makes the venture appear far more expensive than it really needs to be.
The record of âpicking winnersâ on the part of governing establishments6 does not engender much confidence in governmentâs capacity to promote this goal. Nor is âcontracting outâ to private interests likely to provide efficiency in this context. If government cannot do the job itself, there is no reason to believe it will be effective in choosing and funding collaborators. In addition, we believe that even if the state could be effective in promoting such tasks, it would still be improper for it to do so, since its funds are mulcted, unwillingly, from their rightful owners, the long-suffering taxpayers (Rothbard, M. 1998).
In addition to the two primary themes, in a third we note that our species, while admirable in many ways such as the need to explore, is also often quite silly and even more destructive. We have developed weapons of mass destruction, and one despicable government apparatus, venerated by many worldwide, even used them, twice, in 1945.7 But we do not need to resort to such high technology to murder our fellow creatures. We are fully capable of doing so on a massive scale, without such sophistication. Estimates are that governments have done away with almost 200 million of their citizens in the twentieth century, and this is apart from wars 8 and traffic fatalities on public highways.9
In support of this contention, much in the following pages details the violent nature and destructive results of states. The same applies to would-be governments like ISIS and others that go around shooting police officers. In recent days and months, the evening news (of whichever source the reader consults) has been filled with graphical depictions of bombings and shootings.10 These are being done by those who do not so much disapprove of government per-se but who do not like this state and wish to substitute their own. In addition to being anarchists , we do not approve of would-be states either . As Shaw (1903) said: âHe who slays a king and he who dies for him are alike idolaters.â We concur completely that one who ambushes or kills or purposely injures policemen simply lowers himself to the level of these idolaters. To be libertarian requires adoption of the Non-Aggression Principle . That in turn does not admit of murder, assault, or aggression in any way whatsoever against even those of whom we most strongly disapprove.
How will space travel help alleviate mankindâs tendency to kill us? Simple. If we can establish colonies starting with the Moon , Venus , and Mars, and then later, as improved technology will permit, on other planets and moons ,11 the odds will improve that if people blow up any one home of the human race , there will still be others, so that our species will still âlive long and prosper.â
There are of course other ways of raising the odds that our fellow creatures will survive their base instincts. There is psychology; perhaps we can eradicate our malevolent impulses through talk therapy. There is biology; maybe human beings can be engineered so that we are not so given to mass murder. Who knows? Maybe we can hypnotize ourselves so that we are more likely to continue to live. But those are topics for other books. The present one assumes away these e...