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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.
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.
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.
A lunar base would be great, but don't kid yourself into thinking Newt thought of it. Notice he only said this in Florida, where NASA is located...
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
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
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
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.