Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters

MarkWhittington writes "Mitt Romney has infamously suggested that the idea of lunar colonies is 'zany' and has ridiculed Newt Gingrich's idea of building a lunar base by 2020. However Romney has been endorsed by a group of aerospace heavyweights, including Apollo moonwalker Gene Cernan and former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, many of whom have previously supported the idea of lunar bases."

Comments

It's just more Romney pandering.

[mosb1000]

This guy will literally say anything to get elected.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[Fluffeh]

No president wants to go into history as the guy that cut living standards by half only to have debt resolved a few decades later. And you'd need several presidents in a row in order to pull this off.

Interesting. Going with this mentality, either the US will slowly trickle down into lower and lower standards and more and more cutbacks are done, or it will simply default on repayments. While I do see that there are a LOT of defaults happening in the US, and that fifteen trillion debt is American personal debt, not how much the US owes other countries, I still can't really see how the US will be able to maintain the standard of living that it has - no matter what the presidents want to do. Bush was able to get away with the stupid levels of spending in a large part due to the fact that everyone still wanted to buy US bonds. That market isn't as open anymore, China is about full up on what it wants to buy, the European Union has likely learned its lesson already in the shit that it bought before the crash - and even if they hadn't, they have more than enough of their own problems to clean up to have surplus cash lying around.

Whatever the outcome, I think that this whole global economy is going to get a whole lot more interesting over the next five to ten years. While I live in a country that has terrible money management (mainly due to a slipperly slope that was started in the 80's, but we started running down it in the last ten years), at least I can be somewhat relieved that we are a massive exporter of minerals. I do seriusly wonder what will happen to economies like the US where the only things that they seem to export these days are intangible.

Re:It's just more Romney pandering.

[rtb61]

Here's an idea to put paid to that. Golden Shower, anti satellite and launch system.

Take a liquid fueled single stage rocket (oxygen hydrogen), fore and aft fuel tanks and instead of making the tanks of insulated metal, make them from segmented titanium wire reinforced plastic. Incorporate minimum guidance, basically gyroscopic stabilisation and remote control, allow say 10% excess fuel load.

When the rockets reach the required speed and height, rotate to perpendicular, cut of the motors and use a high speed pump and return valve to mix the remaining fuel in the two tanks and 'Kaboom'.

Quite simply piss on American space superiority by denying everyone access to space. Now there are far more countries capable of doing this than can create nuclear weapons. About 10 of these should be enough to shut down access to space for a decade minimum.

A lot of American military superiority is based upon satellite technology, want to see how quickly that can disappear keep going down the stupid, 'moon as the 51st US state' path.

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[Beelzebud]

Killed Bin Laden is a good start.

After having a president that said this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMVdh8vdJfs

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[JimboFBX]

Yeah he does his job and he has 4 years more experience doing it than these guys do. No sexual scandals. No kick-backs to friends he has in big business. He actually tries to improve things and I agree with him a lot of the time.

Romney's a villain in my eyes. He's a bad example; a person I'd be scared if children looked up to. First, he has a ton of kids. Imagine if we all did that, we'd be overpopulated like china in no time. There'd be so much competition that finding a decent job would be near impossible and quality of life would plummit. Next, he's super rich but pays less taxes than I do (% wise). Ok fine, that's the fault of the system, but what does he do with all that extra money? He donates it. Ok fine, I'm not a fan of donations because I like to see where my money is going, but where does it go? Mostly to the Morman church. The richest church in the United States by capita. So thats like donating to rich uncle pennybags in other words, because they're just going to use that money to build more churches and buy more land to bribe people to join their religion. I'll pretend Mormanism stands equal to all other religions in terms of legitimacy...

Gingrich... bleh

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[fyngyrz]

But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?

Yeah... although I'd prefer Ron Paul, I *can* think of reasons to vote Obama back in again:

Due in some degree to Obama himself: Medical care for 40 million or so people who otherwise wouldn't have it; gays being allowed to serve openly in the military; the pro-consumer pushback against the credit card companies; the end of the Iraq war; the limited engagement with Libya instead of spending our soldiers lives for no reason (again!); he signed the closure order for Guantanamo; and good odds that in his second term, when he doesn't have to concern himself with re-election, that he will turn his attention to some of his other campaign promises.

Due to other factors: Romney is an out-of-touch rich idiot; Newt is a scumbag; Paul isn't going to be supported by the republicans because they prefer an idiot or a scumbag to an actual conservative who would try to obey the constitution. Which, I guess, is why I'm seriously thinking about voting for Obama. Again. The republicans have done an *outstanding* job of shooting themselves in the foot this time around.

Is Obama perfect? Hell, no. Is he better than Romney or Gingrich? Yes, in fact, so much so that it's a slam dunk to vote for him, if those are the choices. On the other hand, on the (very) off chance that the republicans wake up and put Paul up against Obama, I'd vote for Paul simply because he says he'd bring our soldiers home and close all those foreign bases. And as president, he'd actually have the power to do it (and very little else on his agenda, so I don't worry about that other stuff much.) But let's face it: the repubs are going to put up one of the clowns, not Paul, and consequently, they're going to lose *really* badly.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[Beelzebud]

That's because for the first time since the Iraq war was started, it was put on the budget, and not in an "emergency supplement"...

Re:*Cricket cricket*

[jmichaelg]

> No kick-backs to friends he has in big business.

Except for Solyndra execs taking the fifth when asked about their ties to the White House.
Except for George Kaiser, a Democratic fundraiser and Solyndra investor.
Except for the Keystone pipeline being killed when it just "by accident" benefits Warren Buffett's holding in railroads that transport oil and coal in Canada and the midwest.
Except for the raid on Gibson Guitar for using Indian rosewood and ignoring Martin Guitar's use of same. Just a coincidence that Gibson is owned by a Republican and Martin is owned by a Democrat.
Except for the peculiar way the Feds rammed General Motors through the pseudo-bankruptcy that stiffed the bond holders and the share holders but kept the contracts intact to the benefit of the unions.
Except for the fact that the "green jobs" stimulus funds went to companies owned by Democrats.

I could go on but the fact is Obama, a politician out of Chicago, is crooked. Quelle Surprise!

P.s. Don't forget that Eric Holder's Justice Department broke numerous statutes when they ran the Fast And Furious program that resulted in 1000's of firearms going into Mexico and some later returned to kill American Border Guards.

Re:Deficits deficits deficits

[cold fjord]

That's because for the first time since the Iraq war was started, it was put on the budget, and not in an "emergency supplement"...

Technically I don't think you can say there is a Federal budget. The US Senate hasn't passed a budget in 1,000 days.

More here.

And everyone should be clear - the spending on the wars in Iraq (the US is out on the schedule Bush set) and Afghanistan are a small percentage compared to total Federal spending. It is a fraction of Defense spending, and Defense spending is dwarfed by social welfare programs.

Re:Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!!

[mwvdlee]

No, this is what Newt said: "By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.".

I understand that to mean that he wants to have a permanent base on the moon within ~8 years, build by America.
There's nothing there about wanting to do R&D towards that goal.
He didn't say the purpose was to promote industry.
Perhaps he does, but the only thing he actually said is that he wants to achieve the goal itself.

Now I haven't followed any of the usual backtracking/reaffirming cycle that happens when an American president wannabe claims something, but that was his original statement.

Re:Government deficit and debt is a red herring

[Eponymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points today. The links you posted are excellent.

Paul Krugman has been writing some very good stuff about the debt lately. A country's debt is nothing like a household's debt. See here for one example of his writing.