Would we have landed on the moon in a libertarian republic?

[rrcamp]

I'm curious to hear your thoughts. Also, if you don't think we would have, how do you feel about it with respect to human advancement and such.

 

[acptulsa]

Probably not yet.

I think the whole program was a way to further rocket science for military purposes. Kennedy found a way to make this ridiculous expense palatable.

 

[hugolp]

Nobody knows for real, but I agree with acptulsa. In a real republic you probably will get to the moon when you can stablish a base there or at least harvest resources, not just do a public and extremely expensive show.

 

[SLSteven]

Probably not yet.

I think the whole program was a way to further rocket science for military purposes. Kennedy found a way to make this ridiculous expense palatable.

Would we sit back while a power-hungry empire developed its military dominance?

 

[eric_cartman]

i don't really think it's a fair critcism of a libertarian republic, espeically considering the origional moon landing was faked. i don't believe their lies

 

[not.your.average.joe]

I personally think that we waste to much money on space exploration... But who knows, maybe it will pay off in the long run somehow. They come up with pretty interesting technology, but I think that could be innovated without wasting all the money on actually traveling to the moon. Have we realized any benifits from traveling to the moon?

 

[acptulsa]

Would we sit back while a power-hungry empire developed its military dominance?

A true libertarian state composed of fools? Possible, I suppose, but doesn't seem likely.

We wouldn't have sat back while others got the jump on us in regards to satellite communications, either. But I don't see a libertarian society spending the extra for landers, crew maintenance, return trips, lunar rovers and golf clubs...

But who knows? A bunch of very rich people just might have gotten insanely curious.

 

[theoakman]

Hell no, there was no economic purpose to go to the moon. There may be one eventually. As it stands, I'm pretty sure we could have found a way to better invest that money.

 

[BudhaStalin]

Going to the moon was all for show. What did we accomplish out of it other than being able to say that we were the first nation to have done so?

 

[FrankRep]

A Libertarian Republic would have a hotel on the moon already.

Maybe?

 

[Zeeder]

If we were a libertarian republic, we'd have advanced at a far higher rate. And more importantly, we'd be happier and free.
Private individuals, if I recall correctly, aren't allowed to launch rockets into space without the government permission.

Had a libertarian society existed for the past 1000 years, then we probably would be on the moon for vacations.

 

[Brian Defferding]

Not yet. As all things in a freer market, these things would have been left up to supply and demand. We haven't been back to the moon because there is no need to be there. Going there wasn't - and isn't (yet) - necessary for our well being. It was done in the midst of a Cold War pissing contest. Now it's claimed to be token of man's achievement - okay, fine, sure I can see that. But I balk at the idea of spending billions of federal dollars to do it again when there is shit going down here in our own backyard.

 

[Stary Hickory]

If enough people wanted it and would fund it...then yes.

If not...then no

 

[enjerth]

I think we could have had Survivor: Lunar Edition by now... even I would tune in to find out who gets voted off the moon. Imagine the potential for commercial revenue with a lunar reality show.

 

[cjhowe]

Who's this "we" you speak of? In a libertarian society, individuals would be on the moon already, but "we" wouldn't have put them there.

 

[tmosley]

No, we wouldn't be on the moon. We'd be in the asteroids, mining them for resources. We would probably be colonizing Mars as well. There might be some presence there (on the "dark" side, for astronomy), but unless there was some compelling reason (like if regolith really has a high density of Helium-3, and a workable He-3 fusion reactor was developed), there probably wouldn't be much of a human presence there.

Of course, it would have far exceeded what was done with the Apollo program. We'd probably be spinning off colony ships to the far reaches of the Solar system using a high powered space elevator by now. Government regulation has really slowed both technical and scientific progress.

 

[rrcamp]

Who's this "we" you speak of? In a libertarian society, individuals would be on the moon already, but "we" wouldn't have put them there.

To clarify, I mean we, the hypothetical citizens of the libertarian republic. Also to deny that humans are naturally social is a bit of a stretch; even the most libertarian populations would congregate and organize in numerous ways.

 

[rrcamp]

i don't really think it's a fair critcism of a libertarian republic, espeically considering the origional moon landing was faked. i don't believe their lies

I'm not trying to criticize libertarian ideas, but rather to listen to how others think through this question. I personally believe we wouldn't have gone to the moon, but I do believe we would have limited consumer space travel already and the cost of putting satellites in orbit would be cheaper.

The struggle for me is deciding how I feel about us not having done it. It's easy to blow it off only because it's so difficult to measure the value of "human accomplishment." Or, does it even have any value?

Other examples: pyramids, LHC, etc.

 

[Number19]

Hell no, there was no economic purpose to go to the moon. There may be one eventually. As it stands, I'm pretty sure we could have found a way to better invest that money.

Not necessarily true. I forget which one, but one of the .com billionaires is currently funding space research just as a hobby. He made his fortune and now he's just spending his money. Space has the aspect of exploration and excitement which fuel dreams starting in childhood. Look at all the private exploration in the late 19th century continuing with Richard Byrd's exploration of Antartica in the 1930's and 40's and Hillary climbing Everest in 1953.

The U.S. probably went at this the wrong way, but of course it was the cold war which dictated the approach taken. It would have been much more efficient to have assembled a re-usable transport, parked in earth's orbit, to transport passengers to the moon and back. A small living/command module should have been assembled or carried into lunar orbit, and a re-usable lander used to reached the moon's surface and back. Finally a permanent habitat should have been constructed on the surface. A heavy lift rocket would have been used to transport the necessary fuel and supplies as needed.

It's been 40 years since the first landing. Even if my concept had taken to 20 - 30 years to fully implement, we would have been far ahead of where we are now. Such a long term approach could easily be financed by foundations or private family fortunes.

Finally, an economic factor could enter the project with the private construction of an earth orbit space station. It would, mostly, derive it's profit from leasing space for conducting space research and production of materials in zero gravity.

Space - the final frontier.

 

[heavenlyboy34]

Only if there were investors interested in providing the capital to make it happen.