These Are the Voyages of the Starship (Private) Enterprise

By Gordon Hopkins I was five years old in 1972. It was an interesting year. Well, not for me, since I was only five. But for the world in general, 1972 saw some significant historical events. It was the year the first ever scientific hand-held calculator was available for sale (at $395 – yikes). It was the year the U.S. and the Soviet Union signed the SALT I treaty, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Biological Weapons Convention. It was the year Nixon went to China. It was the year of Watergate. It was the year Japanese soldier Shoichi Yokoi was discovered in Guam, having refused to surrender after World War II and spent 28 years in the jungle.It was also the last time a U.S.-built spacecraft landed on the moon.Until now. Yesterday, the unmanned Odysseus spacecraft soft landed on moon. In addition to being the first U.S. spacecraft to successfully land on the moon in more than 50 years, it is also the first private spacecraft ever.That last point is notable to me. While the human species had already walked on the moon by the time I reached reading age, many of the books I read as a young lad were about going to the moon but written before it had been done. “A Fall of Moon Dust” (1961) by Arthur C. Clarke, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” (1966) by Robert A. Heinlein, and all manner of tales by Asimov, Bradbury and others. It was, of course, a popular destination for the minds of science fiction writers. But here is the strange thing about those tales. While they all predicted the human race would eventually set foot on the moon, nearly all assumed it would be private enterprise that got us there. Rarely, if ever (I honestly can't think of an example myself, although that doesn't mean there isn't one) did those stories imagine it would be the government that could somehow overcome the almost crippling bureaucracy and political infighting that characterizes most governments and get it done. Somehow, the same government that invented the closest thing to Hell on Earth, standing in line at the DMV, also managed to put a bunch of guys on another planet.Pretty amazing when you think about it.Half a century later, private enterprise is finally getting in on the game. Of course, the biggest customer for this enterprise is still the government. The contract with NASA is valued at $118 million.At this time I have no idea how much it cost to get those packages to the moon, so I can't say if this is a good return on investment.While the government's interest in space has been almost exclusively scientific, private enterprise still has shareholders to answer to. I guess we'll have to wait and see if the money is there to encourage future development in space.

Pauline Louise (Knigge) Disney,

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