Combustion product gasses enter the nozzle through a throat.
Exhaust exits the rocket.
A liquid-propellant rocket or liquid rocket uses a rocket engine burning liquid propellants. (Alternate approaches use gaseous or solid propellants.) Liquids are desirable propellants because they have reasonably high density and their combustion products have high specific impulse (Isp). This allows the volume of the propellant tanks to be relatively low.
Most designs of liquid rocket engines are throttleable
for variable thrust operation. Some allow control of the propellant
mixture ratio (ratio at which oxidizer and fuel are mixed). Some can be
shut down and, with a suitable ignition system or self-igniting
propellant, restarted.
Hybrid rockets apply a liquid or gaseous oxidizer to a solid fuel.
Advantages and disadvantages
The use of liquid propellants has a number of advantages:
A liquid rocket engine can be tested prior to use, whereas for a solid rocket motor a rigorous quality management must be applied during manufacturing to ensure high reliability.
Liquid systems enable higher specific impulse than solids and hybrid rocket motors and can provide very high tankage efficiency.
A liquid rocket engine can also usually be reused for several flights, as in the Space Shuttle and Falcon 9 series rockets, although reuse of solid rocket motors was also effectively demonstrated during the Shuttle program.
The flow of propellant into the combustion chamber can be throttled,
which allows for control over the magnitude of the thrust throughout
the flight. This enables real-time error correction during the flight
along with efficiency gains.
Shutdown and restart capabilities allow for multiple burn cycles throughout a flight.
In the case of an emergency, liquid propelled rockets can be
shutdown in a controlled manner, which provides an extra level of safety
and mission abort capability.
Bipropellant
liquid rockets are simple in concept but due to high temperatures and
high speed moving parts, very complex in practice.
Use of liquid propellants can also be associated with a number of issues:
Because the propellant is a very large proportion of the mass of the vehicle, the center of mass
shifts significantly rearward as the propellant is used; one will
typically lose control of the vehicle if its center mass gets too close
to the center of drag/pressure.
When operated within an atmosphere, pressurization of the typically very thin-walled propellant tanks must guarantee positive gauge pressure at all times to avoid catastrophic collapse of the tank.
Liquid propellants are subject to slosh,
which has frequently led to loss of control of the vehicle. This can be
controlled with slosh baffles in the tanks as well as judicious control
laws in the guidance system.
They can suffer from pogo oscillation where the rocket suffers from uncommanded cycles of acceleration.
Liquid propellants often need ullage motors
in zero-gravity or during staging to avoid sucking gas into engines at
start up. They are also subject to vortexing within the tank,
particularly towards the end of the burn, which can also result in gas
being sucked into the engine or pump.
Liquid propellants can leak, especially hydrogen, possibly leading to the formation of an explosive mixture.
Turbopumps
to pump liquid propellants are complex to design, and can suffer
serious failure modes, such as overspeeding if they run dry or shedding
fragments at high speed if metal particles from the manufacturing
process enter the pump.
Cryogenic propellants,
such as liquid oxygen, freeze atmospheric water vapor into ice. This
can damage or block seals and valves and can cause leaks and other
failures. Avoiding this problem often requires lengthy chilldown
procedures which attempt to remove as much of the vapor from the system
as possible. Ice can also form on the outside of the tank, and later
fall and damage the vehicle. External foam insulation can cause issues
as shown by the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. Non-cryogenic propellants do not cause such problems.
Non-storable liquid rockets require considerable preparation immediately before launch. This makes them less practical than solid rockets for most weapon systems.
Principle of operation
Liquid
rocket engines have tankage and pipes to store and transfer propellant,
an injector system and one or more combustion chambers with associated nozzles.
Typical liquid propellants have densities roughly similar to water, approximately 0.7 to 1.4 g/cm3 (0.025 to 0.051 lb/cu in). An exception is liquid hydrogen which has a much lower density, while requiring only relatively modest pressure to prevent vaporization.
The density and low pressure of liquid propellants permit lightweight
tankage: approximately 1% of the contents for dense propellants and
around 10% for liquid hydrogen. The increased tank mass is due to liquid
hydrogen's low density and the mass of the required insulation.
For injection into the combustion chamber, the propellant
pressure at the injectors needs to be greater than the chamber pressure.
This is often achieved with a pump. Suitable pumps usually use
centrifugal turbopumps due to their high power and light weight, although reciprocating pumps
have been employed in the past. Turbopumps are usually lightweight and
can give excellent performance; with an on-Earth weight well under 1% of
the thrust. Indeed, overall thrust to weight ratios including a turbopump have been as high as 155:1 with the SpaceX Merlin 1D rocket engine and up to 180:1 with the vacuum version. Instead of a pump, some designs use a tank of a high-pressure inert gas
such as helium to pressurize the propellants. These rockets often
provide lower delta-v
because the mass of the pressurant tankage reduces performance. In some
designs for high altitude or vacuum use the tankage mass can be
acceptable.
Liquid propellants are often pumped into the combustion chamber with a lightweight centrifugal turbopump.
Recently, some aerospace companies have used electric pumps with
batteries. In simpler, small engines, an inert gas stored in a tank at a
high pressure is sometimes used instead of pumps to force propellants
into the combustion chamber. These engines may have a higher mass ratio,
but are usually more reliable, and are therefore used widely in
satellites for orbit maintenance.
One of the most efficient mixtures, oxygen and hydrogen,
suffers from the extremely low temperatures required for storing liquid
hydrogen (around 20 K or −253.2 °C or −423.7 °F) and very low fuel
density (70 kg/m3 or 4.4 lb/cu ft, compared to RP-1 at 820 kg/m3 or 51 lb/cu ft), necessitating large tanks that must also be lightweight and insulating. Lightweight foam insulation on the Space Shuttle external tank led to the Space ShuttleColumbia's destruction, as a piece broke loose, damaged its wing and caused it to break up on atmospheric reentry.
Liquid methane/LNG has several advantages over LH2. Its performance (max. specific impulse) is lower than that of LH2
but higher than that of RP1 (kerosene) and solid propellants, and its
higher density, similarly to other hydrocarbon fuels, provides higher
thrust to volume ratios than LH2, although its density is not as high as that of RP1. This makes it specially attractive for reusable launch systems because higher density allows for smaller motors, propellant tanks and associated systems. LNG also burns with less or no soot (less or no coking) than RP1, which
eases reusability when compared with it, and LNG and RP1 burn cooler
than LH2 so LNG and RP1 do not deform the interior structures
of the engine as much. This means that engines that burn LNG can be
reused more than those that burn RP1 or LH2. Unlike engines that burn LH2,
both RP1 and LNG engines can be designed with a shared shaft with a
single turbine and two turbopumps, one each for LOX and LNG/RP1. In space, LNG does not need heaters to keep it liquid, unlike RP1. LNG is less expensive, being readily available in large quantities. It
can be stored for more prolonged periods of time, and is less explosive
than LH2.
Liquid oxygen (LOX) and carbon monoxide (CO) – proposed for a Mars hopper vehicle (with a specific impulse of approximately 250s), principally because carbon monoxide and oxygen can be straightforwardly produced by Zirconia electrolysis from the Martian atmosphere without requiring use of any of the Martian water resources to obtain Hydrogen.
Many non-cryogenic bipropellants are hypergolic (self igniting).
T-Stoff (80% hydrogen peroxide, H2O2 as the oxidizer) and C-Stoff (methanol, CH3OH, and hydrazine hydrate, N2H4·n(H2O) as the fuel) – used for the Hellmuth-Walter-Werke HWK 109-509A, -B and -C engine family used on the Messerschmitt Me 163B Komet, an operational rocket fighter plane of World War II, and Ba 349 Natter crewed VTO interceptor prototypes.
For storableICBMs
and most spacecraft, including crewed vehicles, planetary probes, and
satellites, storing cryogenic propellants over extended periods is
unfeasible. Because of this, mixtures of hydrazine or its derivatives in combination with nitrogen oxides are generally used for such applications, but are toxic and carcinogenic. Consequently, to improve handling, some crew vehicles such as Dream Chaser and Space Ship Two plan to use hybrid rockets with non-toxic fuel and oxidizer combinations.
Injectors
Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engine fuel injector
The injector implementation in liquid rockets determines the percentage of the theoretical performance of the nozzle that can be achieved. A poor injector performance causes unburnt propellant to leave the engine, giving poor efficiency.
Additionally, injectors are also usually key in reducing thermal
loads on the nozzle; by increasing the proportion of fuel around the
edge of the chamber, this gives much lower temperatures on the walls of
the nozzle.
Types of injectors
Injectors
can be as simple as a number of small diameter holes arranged in
carefully constructed patterns through which the fuel and oxidizer
travel. The speed of the flow is determined by the square root of the
pressure drop across the injectors, the shape of the hole and other
details such as the density of the propellant.
The first injectors used on the V-2 created parallel jets of fuel
and oxidizer which then combusted in the chamber. This gave quite poor
efficiency.
Injectors today classically consist of a number of small holes
which aim jets of fuel and oxidizer so that they collide at a point in
space a short distance away from the injector plate. This helps to break
the flow up into small droplets that burn more easily.
The RS-25 engine designed for the Space Shuttle
uses a system of fluted posts, which use heated hydrogen from the
preburner to vaporize the liquid oxygen flowing through the center of
the posts and this improves the rate and stability of the combustion process; previous engines such as the F-1 used for the Apollo program
had significant issues with oscillations that led to destruction of the
engines, but this was not a problem in the RS-25 due to this design
detail.
Valentin Glushko
invented the centripetal injector in the early 1930s, and it has been
almost universally used in Russian engines. Rotational motion is applied
to the liquid (and sometimes the two propellants are mixed), then it is
expelled through a small hole, where it forms a cone-shaped sheet that
rapidly atomizes. Goddard's first liquid engine used a single impinging
injector. German scientists in WWII experimented with impinging
injectors on flat plates, used successfully in the Wasserfall missile.
Combustion stability
To avoid instabilities such as chugging,
which is a relatively low speed oscillation, the engine must be
designed with enough pressure drop across the injectors to render the
flow largely independent of the chamber pressure. This pressure drop is
normally achieved by using at least 20% of the chamber pressure across
the injectors.
Nevertheless, particularly in larger engines, a high speed
combustion oscillation is easily triggered, and these are not well
understood. These high speed oscillations tend to disrupt the gas side
boundary layer of the engine, and this can cause the cooling system to
rapidly fail, destroying the engine. These kinds of oscillations are
much more common on large engines, and plagued the development of the Saturn V, but were finally overcome.
Some combustion chambers, such as those of the RS-25 engine, use Helmholtz resonators as damping mechanisms to stop particular resonant frequencies from growing.
To prevent these issues the RS-25 injector design instead went to
a lot of effort to vaporize the propellant prior to injection into the
combustion chamber. Although many other features were used to ensure
that instabilities could not occur, later research showed that these
other features were unnecessary, and the gas phase combustion worked
reliably.
Testing for stability often involves the use of small explosives.
These are detonated within the chamber during operation, and causes an
impulsive excitation. By examining the pressure trace of the chamber to
determine how quickly the effects of the disturbance die away, it is
possible to estimate the stability and redesign features of the chamber
if required.
Engine cycles
For
liquid-propellant rockets, four different ways of powering the
injection of the propellant into the chamber are in common use.
Fuel and oxidizer must be pumped into the combustion chamber
against the pressure of the hot gasses being burned, and engine power is
limited by the rate at which propellant can be pumped into the
combustion chamber. For atmospheric or launcher use, high pressure, and
thus high power, engine cycles are desirable to minimize gravity drag. For orbital use, lower power cycles are usually fine.
The propellants are forced in from pressurised (relatively heavy)
tanks. The heavy tanks mean that a relatively low pressure is optimal,
limiting engine power, but all the fuel is burned, allowing high
efficiency. The pressurant used is frequently helium due to its lack of
reactivity and low density. Examples: AJ-10, used in the Space Shuttle OMS, Apollo SPS, and the second stage of the Delta II.
An electric motor, generally a brushless DC electric motor, drives the pumps. The electric motor is powered by a battery pack. It is relatively simple to implement and reduces the complexity of the turbomachinery design, but at the expense of the extra dry mass of the battery pack. Example engine is the Rutherford designed and used by Rocket Lab.
A small percentage of the propellants are burnt in a preburner to
power a turbopump and then exhausted through a separate nozzle, or low
down on the main one. This results in a reduction in efficiency since
the exhaust contributes little or no thrust, but the pump turbines can
be very large, allowing for high power engines. Examples: Saturn V's F-1 and J-2, Delta IV's RS-68, Ariane 5's HM7B, Falcon 9's Merlin.
Takes hot gases from the main combustion chamber of the rocket engine and routes them through engine turbopump
turbines to pump propellant, then is exhausted. Since not all
propellant flows through the main combustion chamber, the tap-off cycle
is considered an open-cycle engine. Examples include the J-2S and BE-3.
Cryogenic fuel (hydrogen, or methane) is used to cool the walls of
the combustion chamber and nozzle. Absorbed heat vaporizes and expands
the fuel which is then used to drive the turbopumps before it enters the
combustion chamber, allowing for high efficiency, or is bled overboard,
allowing for higher power turbopumps. The limited heat available to
vaporize the fuel constrains engine power. Examples: RL10 for Atlas V and Delta IV second stages (closed cycle), H-II's LE-5 (bleed cycle).
A fuel- or oxidizer-rich mixture is burned in a preburner and then
drives turbopumps, and this high-pressure exhaust is fed directly into
the main chamber where the remainder of the fuel or oxidizer undergoes
combustion, permitting very high pressures and efficiency. Examples: SSME, RD-191, LE-7.
Fuel- and oxidizer-rich mixtures are burned in separate preburners
and drive the turbopumps, then both high-pressure exhausts, one oxygen
rich and the other fuel rich, are fed directly into the main chamber
where they combine and combust, permitting very high pressures and high
efficiency. Example: SpaceX Raptor.
Engine cycle tradeoffs
Selecting
an engine cycle is one of the earlier steps to rocket engine design. A
number of tradeoffs arise from this selection, some of which include:
Tradeoff comparison among popular engine cycles
Cycle type
Gas generator
Expander cycle
Staged-combustion
Pressure-fed
Advantages
Simple; low dry mass; allows for high power turbopumps for high thrust
High specific impulse; fairly low complexity
High specific impulse; high combustion chamber pressures allowing for high thrust
Simple; no turbopumps; low dry mass; high specific impulse
Disadvantages
Lower specific impulse
Must use cryogenic fuel; heat transfer to the fuel limits available power to the turbine and thus engine thrust
Greatly increased complexity &, therefore, mass (more-so for full-flow)
Tank pressure limits combustion chamber pressure and thrust; heavy tanks and associated pressurization hardware
Injectors are commonly laid out so that a fuel-rich layer is created
at the combustion chamber wall. This reduces the temperature there, and
downstream to the throat and even into the nozzle and permits the
combustion chamber to be run at higher pressure, which permits a higher
expansion ratio nozzle to be used which gives a higher ISP and better system performance. A liquid rocket engine often employs regenerative cooling, which uses the fuel or less commonly the oxidizer to cool the chamber and nozzle.
Ignition
Ignition
can be performed in many ways, but perhaps more so with liquid
propellants than other rockets a consistent and significant ignitions
source is required; a delay of ignition (in some cases as small as a few
tens of milliseconds) can cause overpressure of the chamber due to
excess propellant. A hard start can even cause an engine to explode.
Generally, ignition systems try to apply flames across the
injector surface, with a mass flow of approximately 1% of the full mass
flow of the chamber.
Safety interlocks are sometimes used to ensure the presence of an
ignition source before the main valves open; however reliability of the
interlocks can in some cases be lower than the ignition system. Thus it
depends on whether the system must fail safe, or whether overall
mission success is more important. Interlocks are rarely used for upper,
uncrewed stages where failure of the interlock would cause loss of
mission, but are present on the RS-25 engine, to shut the engines down
prior to liftoff of the Space Shuttle. In addition, detection of
successful ignition of the igniter is surprisingly difficult, some
systems use thin wires that are cut by the flames, pressure sensors have
also seen some use.
Methods of ignition include pyrotechnic, electrical (spark or hot wire), and chemical. Hypergolic
propellants have the advantage of self igniting, reliably and with less
chance of hard starts. In the 1940s, the Russians began to start
engines with hypergols, to then switch over to the primary propellants
after ignition. This was also used on the American F-1 rocket engine on the Apollo program.
Ignition with a pyrophoric agent: Triethylaluminium
ignites on contact with air and will ignite and/or decompose on contact
with water, and with any other oxidizer—it is one of the few substances
sufficiently pyrophoric to ignite on contact with cryogenic liquid oxygen. The enthalpy of combustion, ΔcH°, is −5,105.70 ± 2.90 kJ/mol (−1,220.29 ± 0.69 kcal/mol). Its easy ignition makes it particularly desirable as a rocket engineignitor. May be used in conjunction with triethylborane to create triethylaluminum-triethylborane, better known as TEA-TEB.
Rocket 09 (left) and 10 (GIRD-09 and GIRD-X). Museum of Cosmonautics and Rocket Technology; St. Petersburg.
The idea of a liquid-fueled rocket as understood in the modern context first appeared in 1903 in the book Exploration of the Universe with Rocket-Propelled Vehicles by the Russian rocket scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky. The magnitude of his contribution to astronautics is astounding, including the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation, multi-staged rockets, and using liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen in liquid propellant rockets. Tsiolkovsky influenced later rocket scientists throughout Europe, like Wernher von Braun. Soviet search teams at Peenemünde
found a German translation of a book by Tsiolkovsky of which "almost
every page...was embellished by von Braun's comments and notes." Leading Soviet rocket-engine designer Valentin Glushko and rocket designer Sergey Korolev studied Tsiolkovsky's works as youths and both sought to turn Tsiolkovsky's theories into reality.
From 1929 to 1930 in Leningrad Glushko pursued rocket research at the Gas Dynamics Laboratory (GDL), where a new research section was set up for the study of liquid-propellant and electric rocket engines. This resulted in the creation of ORM (from "Experimental Rocket Motor" in Russian) engines ORM-1 [ru] to ORM-52 [ru]. A total of 100 bench tests of liquid-propellant rockets were conducted
using various types of fuel, both low and high-boiling and thrust up to
300 kg was achieved.[19][18]
During this period in Moscow, Fredrich Tsander
– a scientist and inventor – was designing and building liquid rocket
engines which ran on compressed air and gasoline. Tsander investigated
high-energy fuels including powdered metals mixed with gasoline. In
September 1931 Tsander formed the Moscow based 'Group for the Study of Reactive Motion', better known by its Russian acronym "GIRD". In May 1932, Sergey Korolev replaced Tsander as the head of GIRD. On 17 August 1933, Mikhail Tikhonravov
launched the first Soviet liquid-propelled rocket (the GIRD-9), fueled
by liquid oxygen and jellied gasoline. It reached an altitude of 400
metres (1,300 ft). In January 1933 Tsander began development of the GIRD-X rocket. This
design burned liquid oxygen and gasoline and was one of the first
engines to be regeneratively cooled by the liquid oxygen, which flowed
around the inner wall of the combustion chamber before entering it.
Problems with burn-through during testing prompted a switch from
gasoline to less energetic alcohol. The final missile, 2.2 metres
(7.2 ft) long by 140 millimetres (5.5 in) in diameter, had a mass of 30
kilograms (66 lb), and it was anticipated that it could carry a 2
kilograms (4.4 lb) payload to an altitude of 5.5 kilometres (3.4 mi). The GIRD X rocket was launched on 25 November 1933 and flew to a height of 80 meters.
In 1933 GDL and GIRD merged and became the Reactive Scientific Research Institute (RNII). At RNII Gushko continued the development of liquid propellant rocket engines ОРМ-53 to ОРМ-102, with ORM-65 [ru] powering the RP-318 rocket-powered aircraft. In 1938 Leonid Dushkin replaced Glushko and continued development of the ORM engines, including the engine for the rocket powered interceptor, the Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1. At RNII Tikhonravov worked on developing oxygen/alcohol liquid-propellant rocket engines. Ultimately liquid propellant rocket engines were given a low priority
during the late 1930s at RNII, however the research was productive and
very important for later achievements of the Soviet rocket program.
Peruvian Pedro Paulet, who had experimented with rockets throughout his life in Peru, wrote a letter to El Comercio in Lima in 1927, claiming he had experimented with a liquid rocket engine while he was a student in Paris three decades earlier.Historians of early rocketry experiments, among them Max Valier, Willy Ley, and John D. Clark,
have given differing amounts of credence to Paulet's report. Valier
applauded Paulet's liquid-propelled rocket design in the Verein für
Raumschiffahrt publication Die Rakete, saying the engine had "amazing power" and that his plans were necessary for future rocket development. Hermann Oberth would name Paulet as a pioneer in rocketry in 1965. Wernher von Braun would also describe Paulet as "the pioneer of the liquid fuel propulsion motor" and stated that "Paulet helped man reach the Moon". Paulet was later approached by Nazi Germany, being invited to join the Astronomische Gesellschaft
to help develop rocket technology, though he refused to assist after
discovering that the project was destined for weaponization and never
shared the formula for his propellant. According to filmmaker and researcher Álvaro Mejía, Frederick I. Ordway III would later attempt to discredit Paulet's discoveries in the context of the Cold War and in an effort to shift the public image of von Braun away from his history with Nazi Germany.
United States
Robert H. Goddard, bundled against the cold New England weather of March 16, 1926, holds the launching frame of his most notable invention — the first liquid rocket.
The first flight of a liquid-propellant rocket took place on March 16, 1926 at Auburn, Massachusetts, when American professor Dr. Robert H. Goddard launched a vehicle using liquid oxygen and gasoline as propellants. The rocket, which was dubbed "Nell", rose just 41 feet during a
2.5-second flight that ended in a cabbage field, but it was an important
demonstration that rockets using liquid propulsion were possible.
Goddard proposed liquid propellants about fifteen years earlier and
began to seriously experiment with them in 1921. The German-Romanian Hermann Oberth published a book in 1923 suggesting the use of liquid propellants.
Germany
In
Germany, engineers and scientists became enthralled with liquid
propulsion, building and testing them in the late 1920s within Opel RAK, the world's first rocket program, in Rüsselsheim. According to Max Valier's account, Opel RAK rocket designer, Friedrich Wilhelm Sander launched two liquid-fuel rockets at Opel Rennbahn in Rüsselsheim
on April 10 and April 12, 1929. These Opel RAK rockets have been the
first European, and after Goddard the world's second, liquid-fuel
rockets in history. In his book "Raketenfahrt" Valier describes the size
of the rockets as of 21 cm in diameter and with a length of 74 cm,
weighing 7 kg empty and 16 kg with fuel. The maximum thrust was 45 to 50
kp, with a total burning time of 132 seconds. These properties indicate
a gas pressure pumping. The main purpose of these tests was to develop
the liquid rocket-propulsion system for a Gebrüder-Müller-Griessheim
aircraft under construction for a planned flight across the English channel. Also spaceflight historian Frank H. Winter,
curator at National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, confirms
the Opel group was working, in addition to their solid-fuel rockets used
for land-speed records and the world's first crewed rocket-plane
flights with the Opel RAK.1, on liquid-fuel rockets. By May 1929, the engine produced a thrust of 200 kg (440 lb.) "for
longer than fifteen minutes and in July 1929, the Opel RAK collaborators
were able to attain powered phases of more than thirty minutes for
thrusts of 300 kg (660-lb.) at Opel's works in Rüsselsheim," again
according to Max Valier's account. The Great Depression brought an end
to the Opel RAK activities. After working for the German military in the
early 1930s, Sander was arrested by Gestapo in 1935, when private
rocket-engineering became forbidden in Germany. He was convicted of
treason to 5 years in prison and forced to sell his company, he died in
1938. Max Valier's (via Arthur Rudolph
and Heylandt), who died while experimenting in 1930, and Friedrich
Sander's work on liquid-fuel rockets was confiscated by the German
military, the Heereswaffenamt and integrated into the activities under General Walter Dornberger in the early and mid-1930s in a field near Berlin. Max Valier was a co-founder of an amateur research group, the VfR,
working on liquid rockets in the early 1930s, and many of whose members
eventually became important rocket technology pioneers, including Wernher von Braun. Von Braun served as head of the army research station that designed the V-2 rocket weapon for the Nazis.
Drawing of the He 176 V1 prototype rocket aircraft
By the late 1930s, use of rocket propulsion for crewed flight began to be seriously experimented with, as Germany's Heinkel He 176 made the first crewed rocket-powered flight using a liquid rocket engine, designed by German aeronautics engineer Hellmuth Walter on June 20, 1939. The only production rocket-powered combat aircraft ever to see military service, the Me 163Komet in 1944-45, also used a Walter-designed liquid rocket engine, the Walter HWK 109-509, which produced up to 1,700 kgf (16.7 kN) thrust at full power.
Post World War II
After
World War II the American government and military finally seriously
considered liquid-propellant rockets as weapons and began to fund work
on them. The Soviet Union did likewise, and thus began the Space Race.
The Objectivist movement is a movement of individuals who seek to study and advance Objectivism, the philosophy expounded by novelist-philosopher Ayn Rand.
The movement began informally in the 1950s and consisted of students
who were brought together by their mutual interest in Rand's novel, The Fountainhead. The group, ironically named "The Collective" due to their actual advocacy of individualism, in part consisted of Leonard Peikoff, Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Alan Greenspan, and Allan Blumenthal. Nathaniel Branden, a young Canadian student who had been greatly inspired by The Fountainhead,
became a close confidant and encouraged Rand to expand her philosophy
into a formal movement. From this informal beginning in Rand's living
room, the movement expanded into a collection of think tanks, academic organizations, and periodicals.
Rand described Objectivism as "the concept of man as a heroic
being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with
productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only
absolute". Objectivism's main tenets are: that reality exists independently of consciousness; direct realism,
that human beings have direct and inerrant cognitive contact with
reality through sense perception; that one can attain objective
conceptual knowledge based on perception by using the process of concept formation and inductive logic; rational egoism, that the moral purpose of one's life is the achievement of one's own happiness through productive work; that the only social system consistent with this morality is one that displays full respect for individual rights embodied in laissez-fairecapitalism; and that art is "a selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments."
History
The Collective
Ayn Rand in 1957
"The Collective" was Rand's private, humorous name for a group of close confidants, students, and proponents of Rand and
Objectivism during the 1950s and 1960s. The founding members of the
group were Nathaniel Branden, Barbara Branden, Leonard Peikoff, Alan Greenspan, Joan Kennedy Taylor, Allan Blumenthal, Harry Kalberman, Elayne Kalberman, Joan Mitchell, and Mary Ann Sures (formerly Rukavina). This group became the nucleus of a growing movement of Rand admirers
whose name was chosen by Rand as a joke based on Objectivism's staunch
commitment to individualism and strong objection to all forms of Collectivism.
The Collective originally started out as an informal gathering of
friends (many of them related to one another) who met with Rand on
weekends at her apartment on East 36th Street in New York City to discuss philosophy. Barbara Branden said the group met "because of a common interest in ideas". Greenspan recalled being drawn to Rand because of a shared belief in "the importance of mathematics and intellectual rigor". The group met at Rand's apartment at least once a week, and would often discuss and debate into the early morning hours. About these discussions, Greenspan said, "Talking to Ayn Rand was like
starting a game of chess thinking I was good, and suddenly finding
myself in checkmate." Eventually, Rand also allowed them to begin reading the manuscript of Atlas Shrugged (1957) as she completed it. The Collective began to play a larger, more formal role, promoting Rand's philosophy through the Nathaniel Branden Institute
(NBI). Some Collective members gave lectures at the NBI in cities
across the United States and wrote articles for its newsletters, The Objectivist Newsletter (1962–1965) and The Objectivist (1966–1971).
The first formal presentation of Objectivism began with the Nathaniel
Branden Lectures (NBL), shortly after the publication of Rand's final
novel, Atlas Shrugged. Nathaniel Branden was the first member of The Collective, and later, Rand's "intellectual heir". In time, Branden and Rand became romantically involved. After the publication of Atlas Shrugged,
Rand was inundated with requests for more information about her
philosophy. Not wanting to be a teacher or leader of an organized
movement, she allowed Branden to lecture on her behalf.
The Fountainhead published
Branden meets Rand Atlas Shrugged published
NBI created Objectivist Newsletter starts
Branden-Rand split Ayn Rand Letter starts Objectivist Forum starts
Rand's death
Ayn Rand Institute starts
Ayn Rand Society forms
Peikoff-Kelley split
IOS starts
JARS founded
Objectivist Academic Center
First Anthem Foundation fellowship
The success of NBL prompted Branden to expand his lecture organization into the Nathaniel Branden Institute (NBI). Rand and Branden also co-founded the first publication devoted to the study and application of Objectivism. The Objectivist Newsletter began publication in 1962 and was later expanded into The Objectivist.
The 1960s saw a rapid expansion of the Objectivist movement. Rand
was a frequent lecturer at universities across the country. Rand hosted
a radio program on Objectivism on the Columbia University station, WKCR-FM. The Nathaniel Branden Institute
(NBI) hosted lectures on Objectivism, the history of philosophy, art,
and psychology in cities across the country. Campus clubs devoted to
studying Rand's philosophy formed throughout the country, though
operated independently of NBI. Rand was a frequent guest on radio and
television, as well as an annual lecturer at the Ford Hall Forum. At the peak of its popularity, NBI was delivering taped lectures in over 80 cities. By 1967 NBI had leased an entire floor in the Empire State Building (with The Objectivist as a sub-tenant).
In 1968, Rand publicly broke with Nathaniel and Barbara Branden. She accused Nathaniel Branden of a "gradual departure from the principles of Objectivism", financial exploitation of her related to business loans, and "deliberate deception of several persons". In a response sent to the mailing list of The Objectivist in 1968, the Brandens denied many of Rand's charges against them. The result of their conflicting claims was a "schism", as some
participants in the Objectivist movement supported the Brandens, while
others supported Rand's repudiation of them.
NBI was closed and its offices vacated, in an environment that
Barbara Branden described as "total hysteria" as its former students
learned about the matter. The Brandens continued for a time to sell some of NBI's recorded lectures through a new company, but otherwise had little involvement with the Objectivist movement until their biographical books about Rand were released. The Objectivist
continued publishing with Rand as editor and Leonard Peikoff as
associate editor. Peikoff also took over Nathaniel Branden's role as the
primary lecturer on Objectivism. Peikoff later described the Brandens' expulsion as the first "of the many schisms that have plagued the Objectivist movement."
1970s
Leonard Peikoff delivered lectures on Objectivism throughout the 1970s.
In the 1970s, Rand gave fewer public speeches. She concentrated
instead on nonfiction writing and on helping the work of her students
and associates, through efforts such as a series of private workshops on
epistemology that she conducted from 1969 through 1971 for about a dozen students and professionals in philosophy, math and physics. The Objectivist was replaced by The Ayn Rand Letter in 1971. While The Objectivist had published articles by many authors, The Ayn Rand Letter, marketed as a personal newsletter from Rand, published only her work (plus occasionally Leonard Peikoff's).
Throughout the decade, Peikoff continued to offer a number of
lecture series on various topics related to Objectivism to large
audiences, often incorporating new philosophic material. Rand worked closely with Peikoff, helping edit his book, The Ominous Parallels, for which she wrote the introduction. In mid-1979, Peter Schwartz began editing and publishing The Intellectual Activist, a publication which Rand recommended to her audience. One of Rand's associates, philosopher Harry Binswanger, pitched to Rand his idea for a mini-encyclopedia of Objectivism, The Ayn Rand Lexicon: Objectivism from A to Z
(1986), and she approved of the project after seeing a sample of the
proposed selections. Rand advised him on standards of inclusion but died
before the work was completed. After the close of The Objectivist Calendar, a short publication listing upcoming events within the Objectivist movement, Binswanger began editing and publishing The Objectivist Forum, a bimonthly journal on Objectivism which had Rand's support and for which she served as "Philosophic Consultant".
1980s
Upon
Rand's death on March 6, 1982, Peikoff inherited her estate, including
the control of the copyrights to her books and writing (barring Anthem, which is in the public domain). Shortly after Rand's death, Peikoff's first book, The Ominous Parallels, was published. In 1983, Peikoff gave a series of lectures titled Understanding Objectivism, for the purpose of improving the methodology
used in studying Objectivism, as a corrective to what he describes as
the "Rationalist" and the "Empiricist" methods of thought.
In 1985, Leonard Peikoff and Ed Snider founded the Ayn Rand Institute (ARI), the first organization devoted to the study and advocacy of Objectivism since the closure of NBI in 1968. The institute began by sponsoring essay contests on Rand's novels and
distributing op-eds analyzing world events from an Objectivist
perspective. In 1987, the institute began teaching aspiring Objectivist academics.
Peikoff–Kelley split
In 1989, another major split occurred within the Objectivist movement. Peter Schwartz criticized David Kelley, a philosopher and lecturer then affiliated with ARI, for giving a speech under the auspices of Laissez Faire Books (LFB), a libertarian bookseller. Schwartz argued that this activity violated the Objectivist moral
principle of sanction. In other words, Kelley was implicitly conferring
moral approval on the organization by appearing at an event that it
sponsored. LFB, in turn, was morally objectionable because it promoted
books, such as The Passion of Ayn Rand (1986), that Schwartz
maintained were hostile and defamatory towards Rand and Objectivism as
well as being the world's center for literature promoting anarchism,
which Rand condemned as "childish" and subjectivist. (Although Schwartz made no mention of it, Leonard Peikoff had signed copies of his book The Ominous Parallels at three LFB events in 1982. According to Peikoff, he later broke off relations with LFB after being told that LFB offered anarchist literature.)
Kelley responded, in a paper titled "A Question of Sanction", by
disputing Schwartz's interpretation of the sanction principle in
particular and his interpretation of moral principles in general. Subsequently, in an essay appearing in The Intellectual Activist,
Peikoff endorsed Schwartz's view and claimed that Kelley's arguments
contradicted the fundamental principles of Objectivism. Peikoff
maintained that many non-Objectivist systems of thought, such as
Marxism, are based on "inherently dishonest ideas" whose advocacy must
never be sanctioned. He attributed the fall of NBI and subsequent schisms not to
"differences in regard to love affairs or political strategy or
proselytizing techniques or anybody's personality", but to a
"fundamental and philosophical" cause: "If you grasp and accept the
concept of 'objectivity,' in all its implications, then you accept
Objectivism, you live by it and you revere Ayn Rand for defining it. If
you fail fully to grasp and accept the concept, whether your failure is
deliberate or otherwise, you eventually drift away from Ayn Rand's
orbit, or rewrite her viewpoint or turn openly into her enemy." Those
who criticized his position were to make their exit: "If you agree with
the Branden or Kelley viewpoint or anything resembling it—please drop
out of our movement: drop Ayn Rand, leave Objectivism alone. We do not
want you and Ayn Rand would not have wanted you [...]"
Kelley responded to the Peikoff–Schwartz critique in his monograph, Truth and Toleration, later updated as The Contested Legacy of Ayn Rand. He responded to his ostracism by founding the Institute for Objectivist
Studies (IOS), later renamed The Objectivist Center (TOC) and then The Atlas Society
(TAS), with the help of Ed Snider, one of the founders of the Ayn Rand
Institute. Kelley was joined by Objectivist scholars George Walsh and Jim Lennox, as well as former Collective members Joan and Allan Blumenthal.
1990s
Kelley's
Institute for Objectivist Studies (IOS) began to publish material on
Objectivism and host conferences for Rand scholars in 1990. IOS held a
symposium on Chris Matthew Sciabarra's book, Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical. IOS invited Nathaniel and Barbara Branden to participate in the institute's activities, effectively bringing them
back into the Objectivist movement, and they continued to appear at
events for the organization until their deaths in 2014 and 2013,
respectively. In 1999, IOS renamed itself to The Objectivist Center.
In 1991, Peikoff's book Objectivism: The Philosophy of Ayn Rand
was published. It was the first comprehensive presentation of Rand's
philosophy to appear in print. In 1994, the Ayn Rand Institute expanded
its educational programs into the Objectivist Graduate Center (OGC),
which held classes led by Peikoff, Binswanger, and Schwartz. In 1996,
ARI intellectuals delivered a series of lectures on Objectivism at Harvard. ARI increased its notoriety by staging a protest against President Clinton's volunteerism initiative in 1997. ARI gathered more attention for its activism on behalf of the family of
Elian Gonzalez. The Academy Award-nominated documentary Ayn Rand: A Sense of Life, directed by Michael Paxton, was released in 1996.
2000s
Yaron Brook was executive director of ARI from 2000 to 2017.
In 2000, Yaron Brook succeeded Michael Berliner as head of ARI, and ARI expanded its OGC into the Objectivist Academic Center (OAC),
offering undergraduate and graduate courses on Objectivism, writing,
history, the history of philosophy, and the history of science. Several OAC classes are now accredited. Throughout the 2000s, ARI increased its media presence, publishing
op-eds and providing intellectuals for live interviews. In 2005, ARI
helped establish the Ayn Rand Institute Canada, which distributes free
books to Canadian schools. In 2006, ARI sponsored a conference on the War on Terror. In addition to Objectivist speakers, mid-east scholars Daniel Pipes, Robert Spencer, and Danish newspaper editor Flemming Rose gave lectures. By 2007, ARI had donated 700,000 copies of Rand's novels to high schools around the United States.
The Objectivist Center also went through a number of changes in
the 2000s. In 2005, founder David Kelley stepped aside as executive
director in favor of former Cato Institute scholar Ed Hudgins, while Kelley stayed on as Chief Intellectual Officer, and the institute relocated to Washington, D.C. In 2006, the organization rebranded itself again, changing its name to The Atlas Society.
In 2009, Domingo García founded Objetivismo Internacional (OI) in Spain to help spread Objectivism in the Spanish-speaking world. OI is not officially affiliated with any other Objectivist
organization; however, they closely collaborate with the Ayn Rand
Institute. OI is based in Murcia, Spain, and García is its CEO.
2010s
A
central goal for ARI throughout the 2010s has been to spread Objectivism
internationally. ARI helped establish the Ayn Rand Center Israel in
October 2012, the Ayn Rand Institute Europe in April 2015, and the Ayn
Rand Center Japan in February 2017. Each of these institutions are
affiliated with ARI but are separate legal entities. In 2017, Jim Brown
replaced Yaron Brook as the operational executive of ARI, while Brook
continues as its chairman of the board. In June 2018, Tal Tsfany, co-founder of the Ayn Rand Center Israel, took over as the president and CEO of ARI.
In 2014, Carl Barney launched the Objectivist Venture Fund,
originally the Anthem Venture Fund, which has helped fund a number of
Objectivist initiatives, including The Undercurrent and the Ayn Rand Center Israel.
In 2016, the Ayn Rand Center Israel launched the Atlas Award for the Best Israeli Start-up, presented annually at the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Judges for the award include Yaron Brook and Shlomo Kalish. Moovit was the first recipient of the award in 2016. Zebra Medical Vision won the award in 2017, and Innoviz won in 2018.
The Atlas Society has also undergone a change in leadership in
the 2010s. In 2011, Aaron Day replaced Ed Hudgins as the operational
executive of The Atlas Society, and on March 1, 2016, The Atlas Society announced Jennifer Grossman as its new CEO.
Objectivism in academia
Despite the fact that several members of The Collective were philosophy graduate students at NYU, Objectivism did not begin to make serious inroads into academic
philosophy until the 1980s. Rand herself had much disdain for modern
academia, citing the poor state of American universities, particularly
the humanities, as the source of much of the country's problems. Peikoff expressed similar sentiments in the early 1990s, declaring that
his book on Objectivism was "written not for academics, but for human
beings (including any academics who qualify)". The Ayn Rand Institute initially concentrated on promoting Objectivism
independently of academia, supplying free books to high schools and
universities, sponsoring essay contests for students and support
programs for teachers and professors interested in studying and teaching
Rand's ideas.
Some limited academic attention was given to Objectivism in the 1970s. In 1971, William F. O'Neill published With Charity Toward None: An Analysis of Ayn Rand's Philosophy,
in which he provides an academic discussion of Objectivism. Although he
alleges flaws in Rand's thinking, he expresses admiration for her
efforts, and particularly her ability to motivate readers to think about
philosophical issues. There was occasional discussion of Rand in scholarly journals throughout the rest of the decade.
Thirteen years later, the second book-length academic study of Objectivism appeared. It was a collection of essays called The Philosophic Thought of Ayn Rand
(1984), edited by Douglas Den Uyl and Douglas Rasmussen. It was also
the first book about Rand's thought to be published after her death. Den
Uyl and Rasmussen made a specific effort to bring more serious
scholarly attention to Objectivism by maintaining high scholarly
standards for the essays in their book.
In 1995, Chris Matthew Sciabarra published Ayn Rand: The Russian Radical, an academic study of Rand's ideas and intellectual history. Rand bibliographer Mimi Reisel Gladstein called Sciabarra's work "a significant milestone in Rand studies". Three years later, Sciabarra declared a "renaissance" in the
scholarship about Rand, noting that his book was only "one of fifteen
book titles dealing with Rand that have been published since 1995, along
with countless articles and other references to her work". However, he also noted that not all of the material carried "deep scholarly interest".
In 2001, John P. McCaskey
founded the Anthem Foundation for Objectivist Scholarship, which
sponsors the work of professors affiliated with the Ayn Rand Institute. As of 2007 there were 13 such fellowships for the study of Objectivism in universities in the U.S., including at the University of Pittsburgh and the University of Texas at Austin. In 2006, the Anthem Foundation in conjunction with the University of Pittsburgh
hosted a conference on the philosophy of science called "Concepts and
Objectivity: Knowledge, Science, and Values". Participants included
Objectivists Onkar Ghate, Allan Gotthelf, James G. Lennox, Harry Binswanger, and Tara Smith, as well as noted analytic philosophers David Sosa, A. P. Martinich, and Peter Railton. Other Objectivists, not all of whom are affiliated with ARI, have
received support from the BB&T Charitable Foundation's program to
support the study of capitalism. In 2010 McCaskey was forced to resign from the Ayn Rand Institute and subsequently resigned from the Anthem Foundation.
Since 1999, The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, edited by Stephen D. Cox, Chris Matthew Sciabarra, and R. W. Bradford
(until his death in 2005), has been published semi-annually as a
"nonpartisan", scholarly forum for the discussion of Rand's work and its
application to many fields. The Journal is published by the Pennsylvania University Press and archived at Stanford University's CLOCKSS. None of its editors have been aligned with the Ayn Rand Institute, and
no one affiliated with ARI has participated in its exchanges since 2002.
Student activism
Objectivism
has remained popular on college campuses, with dozens of student groups
dedicated to promoting and studying the philosophy of Objectivism spread across the U.S., Australia, Canada, Guatemala, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Norway. These clubs often present speakers on controversial topics such as
abortion, religion, and foreign policy, often allying with conservative
(and sometimes liberal) organizations to organize their events. For
example, the New York University Objectivism Club hosted a joint panel on the Muhammad cartoons that received nationwide coverage for NYU's censorship of the cartoons. There are several dozen speakers sponsored by the Ayn Rand Institute and other organizations who give nationwide tours each year speaking about Objectivism.
The Ayn Rand Institute has spent $5 million on educational
programs advancing Objectivism, including scholarships and clubs. These
clubs often obtain educational materials and speakers from ARI. There
are also several conferences organized by various organizations, which
draw several hundred attendees each summer and feature philosophy
courses and presentations of new publications and research. A
student-run magazine, The Undercurrent, is published for colleges around the United States.
Influence
There
are a number of writers who cannot be classified as Objectivist but who
still exhibit a significant influence of Objectivism in their own work.
Prominent among these is John Hospers, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Southern California, who credited Rand's political ideas as helping to shape his own, while in other areas sharp differences remained. Another is Murray Rothbard, who, like Rand, advocated volition, Aristotle and natural rights, but who also advocated anarchism, which was anathema to Rand. Also in this category are journalist Edith Efron, scientist Petr Beckmann, and author Charles Murray.
Criticisms and responses
Criticisms
Over the years, some critics have accused the Objectivist movement of being a cult or cult-like, and Rand of being a cult figure. The term 'Randroid' (a portmanteau of 'Rand' and 'android') has been used to evoke the image of "the Galt-imitating robots produced by the cult".
Suggestions of cult-like behavior by Objectivists began during
the NBI days. With growing media coverage, articles began appearing that
referred to the "Cult of Ayn Rand" and compared her to various
religious leaders. Terry Teachout
described NBI as "a quasi-cult which revolved around the adoration of
Ayn Rand and her fictional heroes", one that "disintegrated" when Rand
split with Nathaniel Branden. In 1968, psychologist Albert Ellis,
in the wake of a public debate with Nathaniel Branden, published a book
arguing that Objectivism was a religion, whose practices included
"sexual Puritanism", "absolutism", "damning and condemning", and
"deification" of Ayn Rand and her fictional heroes. In his memoirs, Nathaniel Branden said of The Collective and NBI that
"there was a cultish aspect to our world [...] We were a group organized
around a charismatic leader, whose members judged one another's
character chiefly by loyalty to that leader and her ideas."
In 1972, libertarian author Murray Rothbard began privately circulating an essay on "The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult", in which he wrote:
If the glaring inner contradictions of the Leninist
cults make them intriguing objects of study, still more so is the Ayn
Rand cult ... [f]or not only was the Rand cult explicitly atheist,
anti-religious, and an extoller of Reason; it also promoted slavish
dependence on the guru in the name of independence; adoration and
obedience to the leader in the name of every person's individuality; and
blind emotion and faith in the guru in the name of Reason.
Rothbard also wrote that "the guiding spirit of the Randian movement
was not individual liberty ... but rather personal power for Ayn Rand
and her leading disciples."
In the 1990s, Michael Shermer
argued that the Objectivist movement displayed characteristics of
religious cults such as the veneration and inerrancy of the leader;
hidden agendas; financial and/or sexual exploitation; and the beliefs
that the movement provides absolute truth and absolute morality. Shermer
maintained that certain aspects of Objectivist epistemology and ethics
promoted cult-like behavior:
[A]s soon as a group sets itself up
to be the final moral arbiter of other people's actions, especially
when its members believe they have discovered absolute standards of
right and wrong, it is the beginning of the end of tolerance, and thus
reason and rationality. It is this characteristic more than any other
that makes a cult, a religion, a nation, or any other group, dangerous
to individual freedom. Its absolutism was the biggest flaw in Ayn Rand's
Objectivism, the unlikeliest cult in history.
In 1999, Jeff Walker published The Ayn Rand Cult. In one passage, Walker compared Objectivism to the Dianetics practices of Scientology,
which is considered by many to be a cult. Both, argues Walker, are
totalist sets of beliefs that advocate "an ethics for the masses based
on survival as a rational being." Walker continues, "Dianetics used
reasoning somewhat similar to Rand's about the brain as a machine. [...]
Both have a higher mind reprogramming the rest of the mind." Walker
further notes that both philosophies claim to be based on science and
logic. Walker's book has drawn criticism from Rand scholars. Chris Matthew Sciabarra criticized Walker's objectivity and scholarship. Mimi Reisel Gladstein wrote that Walker's thesis is "questionable and often depends on innuendo, rather than logic." R. W. Bradford called it "merely annoying" for scholars.
The claims of cultism have continued in more recent years. In 2004, Thomas Szasz wrote in support of Rothbard's 1972 essay, and in 2006, Albert Ellis published an updated edition of his 1968 book that included favorable references to Walker's. Similarly, Walter Block, while expressing admiration for some of Rand's ideas and noting her strong influence on libertarianism, described the Objectivist movement as "a tiny imploding cult".
Responses
Rand stated that "I am not a cult", and said in 1961 that she did not want "blind followers". In the wake of NBI's collapse, she declared that she did not even want an organized movement.
Jim Peron responded to Shermer, Rothbard and others with an
argument that similarities to cults are superficial at best and charges
of cultism directed at Objectivists are ad hominem attacks. Objectivism, he said, lacks layers of initiation, a hierarchy, obligation, cost or physical coercion:
I cannot see how a disembodied
philosophy can be a cult. I say Objectivism was disembodied because
there was no Objectivist organization to join. The Nathaniel Branden
Institute gave lectures, but had no membership. You could subscribe to a
newsletter but you couldn't join. Objectivism was, and is,
structureless. And without a structure there cannot be cult. [...] The
vast majority of self-proclaimed Objectivists are people who read Rand's
works and agreed with her. Most have never attended an Objectivist
meeting nor subscribed to any Objectivist newsletter.
In 2001, Rand's long-time associate Mary Ann Sures remarked:
Some critics have tried to turn her
certainty into a desire on her part to be an authority in the bad
sense, and they accuse her of being dogmatic, of demanding unquestioning
agreement and blind loyalty. They have tried, but none successfully, to
make her into the leader of a cult, and followers of her philosophy
into cultists who accept without thinking everything she says. This is a
most unjust accusation; it's really perverse. Unquestioning agreement is precisely what Ayn Rand did not want.
She wanted you to think and act independently, not to accept
conclusions because she said so, but because you reached them by using
your mind in an independent and firsthand manner.
Meanwhile, Shermer, who considers himself an admirer of Rand, has
tempered his judgment. Contrasting Peikoff's "heavy-hammer approach"
with the "big-tent approach" of The Atlas Society, Shermer told Ed
Hudgins: "If we're close enough on the same page about many things, think it's more useful to cut people some slack, rather than going after
them on some smaller points. I don't see the advantage of saying, 'You
shouldn't have liked that movie because ultimately, if you were an
Objectivist, you wouldn't have.' I guess it was those sorts of judgments
made by some Objectiv[ists] that I objected to."
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