My questions stems from the idea of the Star Trek Utopia, where we've automated everything so the only humanity cares about is exploration (paraphrasing big time here).
With the recent 're' launch of the US Space Force, I got to comparing the goal of US Space Force vs the Starfleet Command (you know the whole logo comparison fiasco).
How influential is/was money during the early days of exploration (say exploring earth). Since our reality involves eventually having a lot of jobs automated (therefor less people working...so universal income?), could we become space explorers without the monetary motivation?
And that lead me to the title question.
No, he wouln't have. In fact, his project took so long to be materialised because he looked for financial backing in different places like Portugal and England before finally being backed by the Catholic Monarchs.
His project was not exploration for the sake of exploration, he was financially motivated to find a route to the Indies, and to be more specific to the Spice Islands. The spice trade was extremely lucrative at the time, and still was for a very long time. The Magellan-Elcano expedition of 1519-21, though extremely costly in human lives, returned a profit of over 400% of the invested money. Columbus' own idea was to establish a route to the Indies so he could bypass the Portuguese route and also avoid the Silk Road trade network that in Europe was basically monopolised by Venice thsnks to their vast possessions in the eastern half of the Mediterranean Sea.
With this new trade route that Columbus was thinking of opening he would become rich acting as a monopolistic agent for Castille as well as sabotaging the Portuguese trade network in the Indian Ocean. For the Catholic Monarchs, this would be a fairly good deal if Columbus succeded, as they had been actively sabotaging the Portuguese trade by unofficially sponsoring corsair expeditions, mostly by seafarers of Palos, Moguer, Lepe, Ayamonte, and el Puerto de Ssnta María. By unofficially I mean that if you follow the paper record, the buck would stop at Alonso de Quintanilla's office, a very relevant counselor of the Catholic Monarchs.
Both Columbus and the Catholic Monarchs were financially motivated for this exploration expedition, which becomes more evident when Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca takes charge of the American enterprise after Columbus get stripped of his titles and offices. Fonseca established a systematic exploration of the new lands, with careful reports, and governatorates-captaincies for the people who explored the lands. This system, of course implied giving titles and lands, as the explorers would have undertaken some heavy costs.
Sources:
Fernández de Oviedo, Gonzalo (1535), "Historia general y natural de las Indias". Seville: Johannes Cromberger.
Amores Carredano, Juan Bosco (2006), "Historia de América". Madrid: Ariel.
Sagarra Gamazo, Adelaida (2005), "Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca: Su imagen y su obra". Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid.
Ramos Pérez, Demetrio (1992), "Las capitulaciones de Santa Fe a la luz de la legislación de la época", in Revista Interdisciplinar de Estudios Histórico-Jurídicos, 1.
Anes, Gonzalo (1994), "Sobre Alonso de Quintanilla, Contador Mayor de Cuentas y del Consejo de sus altezas don Fernando y doña Isabel", in II Congreso de Academias Iberoamericanas de la Historia. Factores de diferenciación e instancias integradoras en la experiencia del mundo Iberoamericano, Madrid, Real Academia de la Historia.