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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."
Then I remember he signed up for the circus.
This guy will literally say anything to get elected.
Newsflash! Many people don't base their endorsements on a single issue! News at 11! Despite Romney opposing lunar bases, these folks think the space policy will be better under Romney. I don't know if I agree, but I certainly don't think it's ideologically inconsistent for a group to support a candidate despite disagreeing on one thing.
Funny how "Deficits don't matter" (Dick Cheney) once the Republicans want to do something.
His biggest challenge right now is Newt Gingrich. And so he ridicules Newt as a way to take whatever votes he can. Newt has been thinking about space and technology for decades, whereas Mitt only knows talking points. It is a common tactic in politics to attack your opponent on his weakness and his strengths. Mitts attacks have nothing to do with the merits of lunar colonies, only beating Newt and winning Florida. Romney is a liar who says whatever is necessary to win.
Will we be raising taxes to pay for all of this cool space stuff, or just putting it on the credit card as usual?
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Not like Obama's "Sputnik Moment" where our goal was basically to stop buying Middle Eastern oil from last year's SOTU. A bit of a dud, that was.
Frankly, Obama has done a bang up job and the Republican field is piss poor and is down to a bunch of former losers. The president's job is limited, and that was done on purpose to prevent any man from having too much power. For the most part, it doesn't matter what any candidates aspirations are, because if it goes against the other political bodies it will never happen.
My dad says "Anyone but Obama", but he can't ever seem to remember a good reason why. I can think of several reasons to not vote for both Republican front-runners although honestly the ones that stick out in my mind the most have less to do with their policies and plans and more to do with the kind of people they are.
Having a long term plan for an extraterrestrial base is a great idea. Trying to foist one on an American public tired of heavy deficit spending when our credit rating is already going south is not. Trying to build it in less than eight years when we have no plan and no existing budget is, well, loony.
You know, a one-way Moon shot would actually be inexpensive and quickly achievable. With that in mind: Newt Gingrich for President of the United States of the Moon (population: 1) 2016!!
The election is still MANY MONTHS away. Don't play the election cycle game.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
> Once someone has a foothold away from Earth, we'll have a new frontier to expand, on which existing governments will be largely powerless
Existing governments are already largely powerless, in that their decisions are being made by large multi-national corporate interests. Don't think for a second that those multinationals would have a bit of trouble dictating what happens on the Moon or anywhere else.
- For the complete works of Shakespeare: cat
"After doing the global warming commercial with Nancy Pelosi, Newt realized the earth was sick and decided to leave it for a younger planet."
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The summary reads:
Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters
While what the article says is:
While laying out four principles that his space policy would follow, Romney declined to state what his space policy or goals would be. He reiterated his desire for a committee to experts from across NASA, the military, the commercial sector, and academic to determine what that policy might be. He did not reiterate his opposition to a moon colony, however.
So what about this summary instead:
Romney holds space plans for later; enjoys support from space heavyweights
http://dilbert.com/2010-12-13
Morman church
So you know so little about Romney's church that you can't even spell its common name right, but you know for certain it's evil? Where have I seen that kind of thinking before...
Romney has won a single primary. He isn't even in the lead of delegates, but the media keep trying to shove him down our throats as if no one else is in the race.
Disagree with their politics or not, Newt, Paul and Santorum are still in this race.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Obama's been an awesome failure as a Democratic president, that's for sure. In recent months I've heard his presidency described as George W. Bush's third term, and I can't disagree.
When it comes to voting for Republicans, though, I'd definitely vote for the incumbent black Republican to get a second term if my two choices were Obama vs Gingrich or Obama vs Romney.
Which is why I'll be 'throwing away' my vote on a third party again. Remember, it's only throwing away your vote until enough people do it. Then we can be free.
Didn't those guys attack Obama's efforts to cancel Constellation that was started under George W. Bush? Didn't Romney just attack Obama for trying to cancel much of Constellation?
Newt Gingrich mentioned the need to do things very differently at NASA. Newt Gingrich mentioned the need to be able to launch 4 to 5 times per day. Newt Gingrich mentioned the lack of failure of the missile guys in his speech, and that DARPA was the only part of government that took risks. Newt Gingrich even mentioned the Atlas V rocket.
So basically...
Obama - Augustine report recommendations
Romney - Constellation is back!
Gingrich - Pay SpaceX, Bigelow, etc. a lot of money to build a moon base. Maybe Elon can talk Gingrich into financing his retirement on Mars.
Ron Paul - death to the manned space program
Sure, they'll try to sell people on its scientific and exploratory merits; but it's all a sham meant to hide their real mission of storing spent nuclear waste on the far side of the moon. Then all it'd take is one catastrophic accident and - BAM! - the moon's sent out into deep space, and poor Barbara Bain and Martin Landau are never seen again.
#DeleteChrome
The fix is in. Romney is the "desired" candidate of the elites in the GOP and especially the media and the Democrats. But, they'll eat him for frickin' lunch in November. All the media love being shown to him to him? That's a trap. You can bet your sweet bippy that come election time, they'll turn on him and endorse Democrats. About the space program? "Oh, please, Mr Putin!! Can we ride one of your rockets into space? Our president SHUT DOWN OUR MANNED SPACE PROGRAM, so we need a ride. Won't you please help a poor third-world nation out?" Yeah, Newt's a cad that's been married seventy times. I was married twice myself. Your point, while you cite Bill Clinton as being a good president? I wish the liberal culture of Slashdot could separate their hatred for any conservative candidate with the real issues. The USA DOESN'T HAVE A MANNED SPACE PROGRAM ANY MORE. It *needs* to be resurrected. I'd vote for him on that basis alone, never mind mind he left two harpy bitch gold digger wives. Good riddance. There goes my stellar Slashdot positive karma rating. You people you should be more intellectually consistent... the whole point of this site is about technology and science. Well, here's a guy who wants to promote that. And you oppose him. Bye bye karma. Oh, well...
Newt floated similar ideas long ago, he even introduced a few bills that were supported in a bi-partisam manner.
He also wrote a WHOLE BOOK on space policy long ago that is damn good if you ever bothered to read anything except political news sites.
Newt knows more about space than any other politician in Washington, he has a lot of other issues but it is showing a high degree of ignorance to claim he brought this up for the first time in Florida.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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To anybody who reads the parent: yes, those debt numbers sound impressive. However, ultimately they are just the necessary counter-part to giving the private sector the monetary assets that it desires. This was understood a long time ago, see e.g. here. More recently, Modern Monetary Theory economists have been pushing the same point. If you haven't yet, I recommend you set aside some time to read introductory explanations e.g. here and here and here.
The bottom line is this: targeting a specific size of the budget is bad policy. The budget will be whatever it has to be to match the behaviour of the private sector. Artificial austerity, as is being proposed these days, is coercion of the private sector to go against its natural behaviour, even when that natural behaviour is benign. In other words, austerity actually means an oppressive and draconian government. Deal with it.
Building a Moon base/colony without a sustainable infrastructure to support it would be wildly expensive and wasteful. We need low cost transportation to space, and to learn how to "live off the land" (extract energy and materials in space).
The Moon is big and obvious in the night sky, but it is not the closest place in in terms of fuel to reach. Some near Earth objects have lower delta-V to get to, and all of that delta-V can use efficient electric thrusters instead of inefficient chemical ones for Lunar lander rockets. The first thing you want to extract from NEOs is fuel, but you can get 98% of everything you need to support yourself in space by mining and chemical extraction. The remaining 2% comes from Earth, but combined with launch costs that are not measured in their weight in precious metals, then you can afford a Lunar base, not before.
Actually, while debt is cheap (low interest) and unemployment high (low inflation) is precisely when stupid big government projects are wise. When the economy is healthy and unemployment low is when the government should be paying down debt and reducing spending.
- no, this Keynesian type of thinking is exactly what turns a recession into a depression. This constant 'bail out' and destruction of currency prevents any savings, moves real capital out of the economy into other, better economies, better currencies, and the poverty spreads.
USSR could send the first man into space and have thousands of weapons etc., but the country couldn't feed its people, and it was 75 YEARS OF THIS "STIMULUS".
75 years for USSR, 40 years for USA. Exactly how long do you want to try?
You can't handle the truth.
Between WWII and 1980, the growth in the median family income matched the growth in GDP almost perfectly
1. End of WWII allowed the depression to end, cutting gov't spending by 62% (from 95 to 36 billion USD/year) and taxes by 30%.
2. 1971 Nixon defaulted on dollar and the seventies was a period of stagflation until the interest rates were sharply raised to 21.5% in 1982, this stopped the bleeding of the economy but very soon the interest rates started going down again, and the bleeding restarted.
Using government numbers to measure GDP is completely useless, you should realise that with 11-15% per year inflation for the past 20 years, the real GDP has been shrinking, not growing, the US economy is definitely not better today than for example 3 years ago, fewer people are working today than 3 years ago, yet GDP is reportedly higher. Don't tell me that US workers are much more productive today than they were 3 years ago.
The real GDP must be reduced by the deflator, and when inflation is calculated incorrectly on purpose with all the substitutions and hedonics, you cannot rely on those numbers at all. They use even a smaller deflater by the way, than the CPI, and CPI was reported about 3-4% last year by the government, and real inflation was closer to 15%.
US had high employment after war since it had a near monopoly on manufacturing, while gov't was cut by 62% and taxes by 30%, which allowed quick recovery. US workers could afford out of pocket medical care, health insurance, retirement plans, they owned houses and cars and even second property without debt, they went to vacations, saved for kid's education and all of this was done on one man's salary, the wives stayed home if they wanted to and they mostly did.
Enter the age of big government and big business coming to a criminal understanding and using the crowd as is described here to get the socialist agenda moving, with terrible mistakes being allowed: SS (started a couple of decades earlier, but it really was very tiny percentage wise for the first 20 years), Medicare, all the wars and finally Nixon crashed the dollar, defaulted on the promise to pay gold and the printing really started, which pushed prices up and then came the price fixing.
Fixing prices on everything, from food to wages, setting gov't controlled minimum wage (1938) but raising it during Nixon, setting price of money (interest rates) at record low levels for the time.
Nixon introduced wage and price controls when official inflation number hit 4%.
FOUR PERCENT lead to wage and price controls at the time. Today the real interest rate is 3-4 times as great and official interest rate is 3-4% and everybody says: oh, it's not a problem.
Not a problem my ass, the results are catastrophic, that's what created the Internet bubble and the housing bubble and now the bond and USD bubble.
Between 1980 and 2000, after the switch to "supply-side" economics
- I bet you think that 'supply-side' was actually practised in USA.
Supply side economics is the only real economics, and it worked just fine but the suppliers were not located IN USA and thus USA became a CONSUMER, not a supplier, and consumer only gets consumables from that kind of a fake trade, but the suppliers are growing their manufacturing capacity and are actually driving the economy and increasing their own standard of living, that's why China can actually AFFORD the infrastructure it's building and USA can only pay lip service to it while only exporting counterfeit currency.
Between 2000 and the crash, the benefit contracted even further. Only the top 0.1% saw income growth.
- of-course.
OF-COURSE.
You can't have a non-productive population actually increasing their purchasing power. OF-COURSE the productive part of the population saw large increases, because they moved their savings and
You can't handle the truth.