One of the difficulties of many existing space settlement advocacy groups is their insistence that the government play a leading role. Some groups are better than others, in that they suggest that current governmental policy is problematical, and they want less government interference with private space projects. The Space Frontier Foundation has been a class act in this respect, calling for less government and more private enterprise.

But not all that much less government. Even those groups that want to see less government space activity are still focused on the government as the prime mover. I believe this idea is essentially mistaken. Government policy should not be the focus. After all, governments do not open frontiers.

Now, those of us who attended public schools were certainly led to believe that government opens frontiers. Queen Isabella of Spain was more famous in her time for her work in supporting the Reconquest of the Iberian peninsula, and 1492 was more widely known in Spain for the exile of all Moors and Jews from the country by royal decree. But Americans have been taught that it was Isabella’s jewelry which paid for the three ships Columbus used to “discover” the New World. In fact, the Western Hemisphere had been explored by Phoenician sailors thousands of years earlier, and there is now evidence that Egyptian ships charted the West coast of South America around 175 BC.

Besides, if we take a look at the Spanish colonies in the New World, we get a much different picture from the British colonies. Spanish conquistadores did conquer and did set up outposts, but these were extremely exploitative. Rather than settle, the Spanish pillaged. Easily millions of natives were slaughtered by Spanish imperial policies.

If we prefer the North American model, we should examine whether government was essential to those settlements at all. I think it was not. Thomas Jefferson, writing on this topic, said, “America was conquered, and her settlements made and firmly established, at the expense of individuals, and not of the British public. Their own blood was spilt in acquiring lands for their settlement, their own fortunes expended in making that settlement effectual. For themselves they fought, for themselves they conquered, and for themselves alone they have right to hold. … no shilling was ever issued from the public treasures [of the British crown for the assistance of the Americans] till of very late times, after the colonies had become established on a firm and permanent footing.” (Summary View of the Rights of British America, 1774, as quoted in Papers 1:122)

Nor was government essential in the opening of the Western frontier in America. Indeed, one of the complaints in the Declaration of Independence is that the British government prevented Westward expansion. Endless examples of settlers moving West during various presidential administrations without any support from the government, or in direct opposition (as with the Mormon settlements) of governmental policy are available. Rather than belabor this point, I shall simply offer to rebut any arguments presented by the pro-governmental space factions.

Sovereigns of the High Frontier Society is a different group. We aren’t interested in government policy. If something needs doing, we mean to do it ourselves. We don’t have any interest in government schools, government universities, government libraries, government laboratories, government dictates, or government subsidies. If those things appeal to you, there are plenty of groups from Werner von Braun’s Nationalist Socialist Space Society at one extreme to the “let’s modify government policy and work with them” folks at the Space Frontier Foundation at the other.

Our group intends to be its own set of space programs. We are building our own libraries, our own observatories, our own classrooms, our own labs. Like many groups heretofore, we mean to build our own rockets, our own space systems, our own Moon missions. You might be surprised how inexpensively one can put some tagged particles on the surface of the Moon.

If there are to be human settlements in space, it is up to those of us now living to build them. If there are going to be cities on the Moon and Mars, it won’t be because the government spends trillions of dollars for a few “flags and footprints” missions. The New World was settled because it was economically useful to do so. The space frontier has been profitable for communications satellites and Earth sensing satellites, and is currently attractive for space tourism. Other industries in manufacturing and resource extraction are going to develop soon. We’re going to start these new industries, invent things we need to make them profitable, and settle the space frontier. After all, we want to go.

I’ve wanted to go since 1968, when I first saw the Apollo 8 astronauts circling the Moon on television. So have thousands of others. Since then, I’ve encountered dozens of entrepreneurs who have found ways to be involved. I’ve also watched as nearly all of them have had their dreams corrupted into government contracting, or had their dreams, and in several cases their lives, destroyed by the government.

Space propulsion entrepreneurs have been particularly ill used. From the endless permissions required of Space Services in 1982 to launch their Conestoga experimental rocket to the actual murder by the Mossad of Gerald Bull for daring to develop a new space launch technology in Iraq, a great many hardships have been the lot of contemporary space entrepreneurs. Walt Anderson, the guy who bought the Russian space station Mir was forced to watch it re-enter when NASA pushed the Russian government to force the issue. Lately, Walt has been in jail without trial for about 18 months to coerce his plea bargain to some tax-related charges. His sentencing hearing is in January 2007, nearly two years after his arrest. And these are just a few examples that happen to leap to mind.

The situation with space entrepreneurs has been one project after another destroyed by governmental interference. I’m reminded of what Sam Adams said in his speech in Philadelphia in 1776: “Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plow, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”

I say, to perdition’s flames with the government. They cannot lead, they refuse to follow, and they won’t get out of the way, so let’s build a space industry without them.

In a nutshell, that’s what the Sovereigns of the High Frontier Society are about. We are sovereign individuals who are determined to have leading roles in space achievement. We mean to be a part of it. We mean to lead it.

You would be welcome to join us. http://hisovs.org/