What if we didn’t all own a car…

In the early days of automotive history a lot of questions were unsettled. Questions like which engine technology is the best had not been decided. Automobiles with steam and electric power far out numbered gasoline powered for the first few decades of the automobile’s existence.

One of the very first self propelled vehicles was a three-wheeled steam-powered wagon built by a frenchman in 1769. It could barely travel at a walking pace and crashed on its’ first outing, setting the bar for the French automotive industry until this very day.

To put the automobile scene at the time into perspective the modern reader needs to think back to 2007 and introduction of the Apple iPhone. For the first couple of years, the folks using smartphones were the early adopters and it took a few years before smartphones became the thing they are today. It's more likely that you are reading this using a smartphone than a computer.

One of the biggest questions was how people would get access to automobiles. The idea of everyone owning their own wasn't in most folks minds. Not just because automobiles were expensive and people didn't necessarily have the money, but also not everyone owned one of the thing the automobile was replacing - a horse. In 1900 the horse population in the United States was around 18 million horses and ponies for around 75 million people. Unless you lived in a rural setting and had land and access to food or were very rich you didn't own a horse. If you had need to travel and lived in a town or city you would go to the nearest livery, corral, or stable and rent a horse and possibly a buggy or wagon, assuming that you needed to go somewhere that wasn't served by stagecoach or train.

In 1899 two stables for cars were opened. One in New York City at 213 West 58th Street and one in Boston, MA (address unknown) to serve this purpose along with providing storage and mechanics for car owners. At about the same time a W. E. Metzger opened a showroom specializing in automobile sales in Detroit. As we all know, the rest is history.

What could have been? If people had decided that applying the horse ownership model to automobiles was the way to move forward, how would that have changed our world? Would society be as technology advanced as it is now? For better or worse, the two biggest drivers of technical innovation in this world are entertainment and the automotive industry. For my part I believe that the world would not be as advanced as it is today without the idea that everyone should own a car. I think technology-wise the world would be where it was 50 years or so ago.

And that brings up an interesting tangent. Anyone being able to own a car that they can get into and just go somewhere changed the very nature of travel. Before the automobile, travel was by its very nature a communal activity. People could not satiate their wanderlust alone in the past. In order to go any distance a group of people had to work together in order to make the trip. Now a person can get into a car and point it in a random direction and just go somewhere. No entourage required. For better or worse the automobile and the "freedom" it brings has made travel meaningless.

What am I getting at here? Well if it were not for ubiquitous automobile ownership would we have traveled to the Moon or even beyond? Did the change in the nature of travel help or hinder in our quest to leave the confines of this planet? It is compelling that the generation that really set mankind on the path to the Moon was one that knew what travel was before the automobile became commodity and the later generations just decided that the reward wasn't worth the effort. Just imagine if after the first few groups set sail into the Mediterranean the next generations had just decided to just stay at home. That’s what happened to space travel.

A sight that should be common pace and yet here we are still stuck on Earth.

The reality is that we have the technology and ability to live on the Moon now and yet we as a people have chosen not to. The people who made it possible to go to the Moon still had in their hearts the wanderlust that made people of old search out unknown places. There are some people today who say that they want to travel to space, that they want to live on Mars in their lifetimes, but they are just unimaginative copy-cats with too much money and too much time on their hands and no real wanderlust.

Is that good or bad? Who knows. I will say this; we, as a society, live in the best possible time to be alive. All of human history has made its best effort to plot a path toward justice for all people. That means that where we are now is the best possible outcome, if it weren't then other outcome would be where we are. It also means that we are moving toward a future of justice for everyone and if the current situation is any guide that means that easy travel for everyone is part of that future. Here’s hoping we finally get off this rock and see the universe around us.