Gingrich Space Plan Promises the Moon, Literally: Lunar Base by 2020

Space.com ^ | 25 January 2012 Time: 07:07 PM ET | Mike Wall

[Lady Lucky]

Heinlein wrote FICTION.

I've never read the very popular and widely beloved Heinlein, but at least I know that good fiction is never just fiction. It delivers truth, as opposed to fact. Indeed, truth can be much clearer in fiction than in fact.

[W. W. SMITH]

600,000 lost in the civil war.

[ILS21R]

Again, not true

Again, it is true. I shouldn't have to do the legwork for lazy libs, but here:

"Smoke detectors were first developed and installed aboard the Skylab space station in the 1970s. This technology eventually reached the consumer market, and these devices are now standard household items."

Any idea how many lives smoke detectors have saved?

Read more: Space Inventions Used on Earth | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/list_7350873_space-inventions-used-earth.html#ixzz1ka5qM26I

Now go occupy something.

[throwback]

Sorry, Newt Gingrich isn't my life. I'll grant you the technology spinoffs from NASA were probably more significant than Facebook.

[Leep]

If we could send all the liberal/progressive/commie to the moon, pow zoom, I would definitely support a moon station.
It would be ideal for them. No oil or carbon output.

[bert]

I suspect that when it comes to Heinlein, you are illiterate and not really able to comment in a creditable manner. That would mean your post is drivelous blather that costs bandwidth

[HectorOne]

Thank you for mentioning the prizes. Of course nobody reads that far, they just want to make fun of someone who wants to go to the moon because it’s such a “waste.” That’s exactly what a liberal would say. Forget about unleashing the ingenuity and genius of the American people.
Nobody remembers that Lindberg flew across the Atlantic to win the $25,000 Orteig Prize. Better to just listen to the RINOS and their small minds as they mock any inspirational idea.

[W. W. SMITH]

The surface of the moon or mars is not zero-G. The resources to be exploited are astronomical both in quantity and value.

[Road Glide]

“Newt- NASA - Moonbase
Obama - NASA - Muslim outreach
Any questions?”

Yep. I’ve got one.

Where’s the ton of money to pay for this going to come from?

Nice rhetoric from Newt.
It’s a campaign, remember?

(BTW, before you attack me, I’ll be voting for Mr. Gingrinch in the primary and in the general, if he makes it)

[from occupied ga]

Both has/can lead to billions in resources and economic expansion for the U.S..

I disagree. You're overlooking several things:

1. First and foremost is the immense cost of getting anything back from the moon. There is literallly no material substance that could be obtained on the moon that wouldn't be cheaper to obtain right here on earth
2. Second, WHAT is on the moon anyway? Alaska gave things like gold, oil, fish, timber. Since the moon doesn't have air or life, we can let out fish and timber. Since the latest moon formation theory considers it to be the ejecta from the mantle due to a really large collision early in earth's history, it is unlikely to have much in the way of heavy metals, and I doubt it has much oil, but even if it were composed of crude oil it would not be economically feasible to exploit it. It short to the best of anyone's knowledge it's a ball of rock, and if you want rocks, you can pick them up just about anywhere prety cheaply.
3. There is the lost opportunity cost. For every dollar spent (or squandered) that is forcibly extracted form the taxpayers, a dollar's worth of something that those selfsame taxpayer actually want isn't manufactured developed or purchased.

In short a taxpayer funded lunar colony is nothing but a giant waste of resources.

[ari-freedom]

“Sorry, Newt Gingrich isn’t my life.”

Like my mom used to say, if you can’t say anything good...

[Tulsa Ramjet]

He would probably get more political mileage if he would say that the first order of business in being president would be signing off on the Keystone Pipeline project.

[kosciusko51]

If we could send all the liberal/progressive/commie to the moon, pow zoom, I would definitely support a moon station.

I would rather send them to the sun. But I would send them at night, since it would not be as hot.

[LowTaxesEqualsProsperity]

People care about lack of jobs and $15,000,000,000,000+ in debt, not the lack of a moonbase colony which will be extremely expensive.

This is a space cadet idea at this time.

[throwback]

You’re sneaky. Point taken.

[Lady Lucky]

You wrote, “Human life does not prosper over long periods in zero-G. There are no resources out there that can be economically harvested.”

From http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Incorrect_predictions

Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible...Well-informed people know that it is impossible to transmit the human voice over wires as may be done with dots and dashes of Morse code, and that, were it possible to do so, the thing would be of no practical value...The ordinary ‘horseless carriage’ is at present a luxury for the wealthy; and although its price will probably fall in the future, it will never, of course, come into as common use as the bicycle.

Very entertaining page, numerous hilarious predictions. Recommend a visit.

[ari-freedom]

For national security reasons, you want to be on the moon. China has already demonstrated how easy it is to take down a satellite.

[JenB]

There are no resources out there that can be economically harvested.

I suspect there were those who said the same thing of the New World in 1500 or so. There are plenty of resources that could be economically viable, with some technology development in the private sector.

That said, the Moon and Mars are sexy but not the best steps. We need orbital habitats. Lots of them, and big ones. O'Neill colonies would give us the step into space we need. Girard O'Neill wrote the book on it back in the 80s. It was feasible for private industry then. It could be feasible now.

[Calvin Locke]

I seem to remember reading that the Moon’s gravity was not sufficient to overcome degrading effects of zero-g (for want of a better term).

I suppose that building a sleeping centrifuge on lunar firma might be feasible.

[kosciusko51]

In other words, we need to militarize the high ground. In my mind, making NASA a civilian organization was not the way to go. NASA should be part of the military, and leave the civilian side to the commercial space development.