It looks like a cool site, at first glance, Andrew. I've added it to the blogroll.

Just an idle comment. I saw an interesting comment over ad David Appels comment section, regarding private vs. government space flight efforts:
http://davidappell.com/archives/00000057.htm#comments
[quote]
By the way, the old Golden Age science fiction dream wasn't generally of a government manned spaceflight program, either. Usually the first trip into space was bankrolled by a heroic entrepreneur or eccentric inventor, often in violation of a despotic government.
"Star Trek" was the later, post-Sputnik variant of the dream.
[/quote] by Matt McIrvin

hadnt thought about this before.

Mr. Anonymous wrote:
"By the way, the old Golden Age science fiction dream wasn't generally of a government manned spaceflight program, either. Usually the first trip into space was bankrolled by a heroic entrepreneur or eccentric inventor, often in violation of a despotic government."

I believe that a lot of this science fiction literature has had a big effect on the "alt-space" activist community. They read it as kids and internalized it, and as adults they often have a gut feeling that this is the way things should be--it should be possible for an eccentric scientist and a couple of Boy Scouts to build a rocket in the garage and fly to the moon to battle Nazis. Alternatively, they hope for the rich entrepreneur who will bankrole a private space program.

It would be worthwhile to list a bunch of these stories and novels and then try to track their influence on modern space activism. I can remember at least one of Heinlein's juvenile novels that had a scientist and Boy Scouts building their own rocket. And I believe that Larry Niven may have written about a rich space investor who funds a mission to a nearby star. Jerry Pournelle became directly involved in space causes, but I'm not sure if he wrote fiction that also advanced his views.

I personally think that much of this influence has been negative, but one could argue the opposite, I guess.

I personally think that much of this influence has been negative, but one could argue the opposite, I guess.

I'd be interested in seeing an argument for the case that it's been negative, Dwayne, and of course, I've been arguing the opposite for years...

I don’t agree with the contention. I don’t believe most “first flight” stories were about lone inventors in contention with a government, and were usually pretty obvious wish fulfillment type stories. Most “lone inventor” stories assumed a clean nuclear drive (and this type of story faded out in the ‘50s) or magic technology: Anti-gravity, reactionless drives, inertialess drives, etc. A number of these were extreme Juveniles – various Tom Swift books, “Danny Dunn and the Anti-Gravity Paint”, several Mushroom Planet books. Some were a cut above these, though not great. Heinlein’s “Rocket Ship Galileo” (inventor and kids with nuclear drive) was definitely far from his best work. Some were jokes (“Mouse on the Moon” used nuclear wine). There were a few others, but even when in grade school I understood this wasn’t reality.

There were government space program stories. Lester Del Ray and Hugh Walters both had a number of books involving early exploration – first orbital flight, moon landing and so on. They’re all out of print because they are so very dated.

One of the very best private space stories was Heinlein’s “The Man Who Sold the Moon,” from 1950. It is about a wealthy entrepreneur almost going broke getting a man to the moon in a multi-stage step rocket. He manages to make money out of it, but it is a very near thing – and investors don’t allow him to go himself, though that was the main reason he went to all the trouble.

There are quite a few private spacecraft owner stories where space travel is already well established and a number of “Good Guys run away in spaceship” stories, but not usually privately developed.

Personally, I was in awe of NASA for many years. The reason I became disillusioned with NASA was NASA. They went to the moon in a decade. Why wouldn’t I expect that there would be more than a few government employees in space more than three decades after that?

Dwayne A. Day wrote;
"Alternatively, they hope for the rich entrepreneur
who will bankrole a private space program."

Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen are bankrolling projects in that direction, of course. I wonder if either of _them_ were influenced by SF at a young and impressionable age.