Speak for yourself. To quote Luke Skywalker, I care. It was one of the most amazing, formative moments of my youth, realizing we had been able to put human footprints on the Moon. The space program demanded solutions to seemingly impossible problems. Miniaturization of transistors led to electronic calculators and the first generation of home computers. Think how different our present world would be if we had not taken that dare. I think Newt was right to appeal to our natural impulse to reach ever higher. Remarkable achievement is the hallmark of the America I grew up in and came to love, and the antidote to the deadly slumber of socialist mediocrity that now threatens us. So I say yes, Newt, take us to the Moon again.
Precisely.
Newt pointed out that 97% (he picked that number quickly LOL)
will be funded by the private industries.
Going back to the moon will cost just billions, tens
or even hundreds of billions at most (including mining
the sepcial element — Helium??), but the net effects
will trickle into trillions of dollars in the next
decade in revival of new technologies.
It’s also a matter of national security.
The problem is that this country is bankrupt. We have a national debt of over $15 trillion equal to our GDP. We borrow 42 cents of every federal dollar spent. We have an unfunded liability of over $60 trillion represented by our entitlement programs, which will continue to increase in costs as our population ages. And we are confronted with globalization where the emerging markets like China and India, are taking our middle class jobs as multinationals leave the US.
I graduated high school in 1961. We are in entirely different circumstances, fiscally and otherwise, than we were then. And we are no longer the same country demographically or electorally. Immigrants account for one in 8 U.S. residents, the highest level in more than 90 years. In 1970 it was one in 21; in 1980 it was one in 16; and in 1990 it was one in 13. In a decade, it will be one in 7, the highest it has been in our history. And by 2050, one in 5 residents of the U.S. will be foreign-born.
We can reach higher, but not until we get our feet planted firmly on the ground again. We are already seeing the battle being played out between guns versus butter as the Dems seek to slash military spending and shift the savings over to keep the welfare state running a little longer. This is a sign of a great nation in decline in much the same way the British Empire sputtered to an inglorious end.