Short Story: The Man Who Sold the Moon

Overview
D.D. Harriman is a driven, single-minded entrepreneur whose ambition is to send a privately financed expedition to the Moon. He uses every tool at his disposal, publicity, business savvy, legal maneuvering, and moral flexibility, to convert a dream into a profitable project. The narrative traces the practical and ethical lengths required to move rocketry from daring speculation to a concrete plan that attracts investors and government attention.
Heinlein presents Harriman as an archetype of the canny capitalist-visionary, a man who understands both machines and markets. The story blends engineering detail with courtroom drama and showmanship, portraying spaceflight as an enterprise that must be sold to skeptics, bureaucrats, and the public before it can ever actually leave the ground.

Plot
Harriman recognizes that technology alone will not produce a Moon expedition; money, contracts, and political support are equally necessary. He engineers situations that force governments and financiers to take space seriously, pushing public opinion and exploiting legal ambiguities to secure exclusive rights and launch privileges. His tactics range from shrewd negotiations to ethically dubious gambits, all aimed at ensuring that his company controls the means and the rights to lunar exploration.
A central thread is the creation of financial structures and publicity that transform the Moon from an abstract curiosity into something tangible that investors can understand and fund. Harriman cultivates influential allies, manipulates rivalries, and stages events to make his enterprise inevitable. The story follows the escalating stakes as technical development proceeds in parallel with legal battles and media campaigns, culminating in the realization that bold private initiative can force society to confront the possibility of leaving Earth.

Themes and Tone
The story interrogates the relationship between commerce, science, and ambition, insisting that grand technological achievements depend as much on persuasion and capital as on engineering skill. It asks whether ends justify means by presenting a protagonist whose ruthlessness is both admired and critiqued; Harriman's moral ambiguity is central to the narrative tension. Heinlein treats the businessman-hero sympathetically while refusing to whitewash the compromises that success requires.
Optimism about human ingenuity runs through the tale, tempered by a realistic eye for politics and human weakness. The tone mixes hard-boiled commercial realism with the wonder of spaceflight, suggesting that the first voyages off Earth are likely to be the product of entrepreneurs who can sell a dream and make it bankable.

Legacy
This story helped codify the figure of the private space entrepreneur in science fiction, influencing later portrayals of commercial and corporate involvement in space exploration. Its focus on the interplay between money, law, and technology anticipates real-world debates about privatization of space, intellectual property, and who gets to profit from exploration.
Heinlein's blend of technical fascination and tough-minded business strategy keeps the tale resonant: the Moon becomes not merely a scientific target but a commodity to be organized, financed, and negotiated into existence. The story remains notable for showing how human institutions shape technological destiny, and for honoring the messy combination of grit and guile that often drives major leaps forward.