Newt
Gingrich’s bold new idea, recently revealed at a
stump speech in Florida, of seeding the Moon with American astro-colonists is
actually not all that crazy. What is crazy is asking taxpayers to continue
to spearhead space exploration for another 53 years; on this point he is as
usual – wrong.
In last night’s Jacksonville
debate, former Governor Mitt Romney seemed to agree, I know Ron Paul does.
Romney, however, merely saw a golden opportunity to mock Newt for his
outlandish idea and to weigh
in on it as a former businessman:
“If I had a business executive come
to me and say I want to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on
the moon, I’d say: ‘You’re fired!’” Romney boasted.
Only one problem, there are a lot of businessmen whom disagree
with the former Bain Capital CEO. Evidently
Romney doesn’t know mitt about interstellar business.
Sir Walter Branson founder of
Virgin galactic has kind of a knack for creating value and he sees a lot of it
in space. For example, Branson
just completed the world’s first international spaceport in New Mexico and will
soon shuttle wealthy space enthusiasts into low earth orbit.
Virgin Galactic isn’t the only
celestial startup, Bigelow Aerospace of North Las Vegas, Nevada aims to create
orbiting luxury hotels and SpaceX has developed one of the first operational private
space capsules called the Dragon. For a surprising list of private space
companies and their ideas for the future look, here.
Newt’s
reason for bringing up a moon base makes a lot of sense. Evidently Florida’s Space Coast, a
community heavily reliant on high tech spending, is hurting more than the rest
of the country, treading water at 12% unemployment. While I’m not necessarily a fan of some of Planet Newt’s
ideas namely his love affair with geoengineering,
what he refers to as “cheap” market-based approaches to anthropogenic climate
change, he might be getting warm on this one.
It
is time to emancipate the U.S. from the U.N. “Space Treaty”
we signed in 1967 in the midst of the Cold War and explore the final
frontier! Why can’t start
colonizing the moon under a “northwest ordinance” and reignite the idea of manifest
destiny? Why can’t the moon be our
51st state? Are we to
extend the same concept to the entire cosmos? Do we have to become One World before we step off this
rock? If we wait there is a lot to
lose.
Gingrich
wrote a pretty straightforward book a few years back: Drill Here, Drill
Now. In that vein Newt is for once
consistent, a Moon base would be a colossal job creator. NASA, however, probably shouldn’t build
it even though they’re in talks
with Russia for a joint venture to do so. If Florida’s Space Coast want’s jobs they’ll find it in
companies like Shackelton Energy Co. which seeks to extricate fuels like
plutonium-238 and helium-3 by transforming the moon into a interstellar gas
station. Gingrich should write
another book after he loses the election: Drill There, Drill Soon.
Barack
Obama deserves some kudos too.
Although Obama receives his due ration of ridicule I would like to thank
him for ending the space shuttle program as it was because he highlighted for
Americans the fact we don’t need government to be inventive, curious, or
passionate when it comes to space travel.
When everyone was afraid we’d be hitch hiking on Russian and Chinese ships
I said Goodbye
NASA, Hello Space Age. Finally
the monkey is off our back.
Private companies might not be in it “For the Benefit of All” as goes
the NASA motto, but their work will benefit all.
