
Not at all!
Lord Sutch made good sense (occasionally). And he had a better dress sense
Presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich is telling the people of Florida about his plans for a permanent base on the Moon, and suggesting it may be possible for the satellite to become the 51st US state. "By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon, and it will be American," he told supporters at …
Obama has cleared you for flight status by special order. We need a dynamic governor at moon base alpha. You are just the man. Your constituents will be up shortly.
I love the guy screaming about government exceeding its budget, but offering no help.
A helpful hint, take short breaths, your oxygen will last longer.
Given its probably going to take more than half that time to actually return to a capability of being able to get people to the moon, its clearly not going to happen.
However it does show that Newt has no concept on what other countries are; as the idea that other countries may have issues with him claiming the moon as American territory clearly has either not occurred to him, or he doesn't care.
I saw that movie. It's Britain of course. With Australia, New Zealand and Canada (in that order) being the 52nd,3rd and 4th.
As for Israel . What makes you think its leaders would submit to that much loss of control of their budget. They already influence enough US miltary thinking to get all the money they need from the budget.
Pretty much *all* candidates will sound enthusiastic about space in Florida. It's the NASA connection. As for having a *funded* plan to get there that's another matter.
When people want to talk about NASA's "vast* size they emphasize its $18Bn budget.
When they want to talk about how *small* it is they point out it's 0.5% of the total *federal* budget (not US GDP) and that the Pentagon spend more than *double* that on aircon for it's overseas bases. Or people in the US spend more on home delivered pizzas ($27Bn).
You are most likely entirely correct. However, politicians are coated in a layer of bullshit, and one of the remarkable properties of bullshit is that it is completely impermiable to logic, facts or reality. It also seems to leech out all morals and cause long term memory loss, especially when it comes to expense reports and intern shagging.
If the political will was there, and the finance was available, it would be perfectly possible.
If we could start more-or-less from scratch in 1961 and get a moon landing by 1969, then with our additional technical knowledge, and our massively more powerful and efficient computers, I can see no good technical reason why we couldn't have a base on the moon by 2020.
I agree with you, of course. It'll never happen.
You would have a point if landing on the moon were not so far from a permanently staffed moon base. A permanently staffed moon base would need supplies, a lot of supplies, and that would in turn take a lot of flights and landings to supply. Building the base in the firsr place would take even more. To do this realistically you will need a reusable space truck capable of landing on the moon and returning. A sort of shuttle squared if you like.
Yes you could do it with non-reusable craft, but imagine having to effectively write off something like an oversized Apollo 17 every time you needed to make a delivery. A reusable craft makes a lot more sense, but nobody has even started building it yet. Developing and building such a craft in time for the base to open would be a tall order, but they would have a lot less than seven years it would need to be operational on the day they began building the base.
It's a completely empty promise and Newt knows it is. We know the finance is not available, but I don't believe that the political will is their either because I don't believe the man has any intention of following through on this promise should he be selected and happen to get into the white house.
You'd be amazed where Newts can get to and they are very difficult to get anything to stick to due to their ability to wriggle out of most situations.
Also remember that he will be up against a negro incumbent and that this is the USA, otherwise known as the country with the worlds highest concentration of Christian Fundamentalists.
People outside the US will be hoping that Obama will get re-elected, but inside the US they seem to be hankering to put another dribbling moron in the White House.
To replace the one we've already got?
Newt's full of shite. Everybody knows that. The idea has some merits, although the violation of treaties and intercelestial body expansion will never fly. I would love to travel to the moon, but have to resort to alcohol for the time being.
If we keep shooting down big ideas because we think they'll never work or because we hate the politics of the guy proposing it, we'll be joining the same people that told the Wright brothers that it would never fly. A lot of these ideas being vetted in these debates and the runup to the election will play a big part in whatever administration manages to get elected -- unless they are so damned stupid as to not watch the crowd response.
I did enjoy the "we've done all the learning there is to learn, so no need to go to space." comments. I believe that's been said before in a lot of civilizations.
PH -- another celestial body I'll never get to explore.
Well, you can't exactly fault him for having high ambitions...
...and it certainly beats his main rival's campaign claim to fame:
'I believe in an America where
millions of Americans believe in
an America that's the America
millions of Americans believe in.
That's the America I love."
Oh, and deity help us if any of them do get into power and either invade Iran or shut down its oil and gas production, the bulk of which is sold to the the likes of Russia, China and India. Given that China holds the majority of America's debt, it's probably not a good idea to piss them off too much...
Newt has his issues but at least he has some kind of vision & goals, unlike the other three. Those shuttle airframes were certified for 100 flights each - biggest issue was the launch system.
I detest Obama for killing the shuttle, I feel he has stolen our kids future by this action - no goals, no vision= no future.
Ya'll laugh, but a moon base would be an excellent choice for exploiting anything the moon may have under the surface, as well as an excellent place to conduct the kind of experiments we cannot do on earth to expand our holdings in space. Anything made or mined on the moon would be relatively easy to retrieve due to being in Earth's gravity well - all downhill.
NCC-1701 baby! I want it. I'm with Professor Farnsworth - I don't want to live on this planet anymore.
Bush's "Vision for Space Exploration", released in February 2004 (http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/55583main_vision_space_exploration2.pdf) said that the Shuttle should be retired by 2010"
"Retire the Space Shuttle as soon as assembly of the International Space Station is completed, planned for the end of this decade;"
By the time Obama arrived, in the middle of a massive financial meltdown, restarting the shuttle program wasn't really practical (more's the pity).
Given that the British Military seems to be the deniable elite ops arm of US foreign policy, notwithstanding the way UK.gov bends over every time a ranking Yank politican yells drop 'em city-boy.
Are we really still owned by the USA following the cost of hiring them as cannon fodder at the end of WWII with our gold reserve & British US-based businesses? Perhaps if we did something to keep our top boffins and inventors INSIDE the UK for a change...
Kaboom, cos no doubt someone will offer to nuke my scrawny limey ass back to the stoneage for me. As they do.
Unfortunately, Republicans have been told repeatedly over the last four years "anybody but Obama is the #1 goal". And they do seem to vote as instructed, in lockstep, regardless of the qualities of the candidate (look at Bush). So whomever the final GOP candidate turns out to be, the Republicans will vote for him. Democrats don't vote in lockstep, to their detriment.
Newt can have his fans too if he is serious about delivering the inevitable.
<blockquote>HonourableMember ….. on http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2012/jan/26/newt-gingrich-moon-base-dream
27 January 2012 3:44AM
Hi, Alok Jha,
Maybe wily coyote Newt is gonna recolonise the world as if starting on the moon
...... http://www.ur2die4.com/?p=1473 ...... drivering Uncle Sam to build Paradise Cities and Seventh Heavens. Dropping pre fabricated units together in the alien environment of space without first having built and realised what is to be built in similar terrain on Earth as a SMART Intelligence Base for Natural Network and NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActive IT Systems Control, would be a recipe for continual failure to lead in Space Exploration and Virtual Colonisation and Population of CyberSpace.
IT is certainly something all executive administrations on Earth are confronted with and/or advised of here, by virtue of this introduction.
Moving the Mountain ….. on http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2012/01/23/russia_nasa_moon_station/
Posted Monday 23rd January 2012 15:20 GMT
Phil O’Sophical,
Create a modern population for planetary seeding on Earth, in a Mirror Base Station for Lunar Operations.
What would you build on the Moon ……. a temporary structure or a work of future art. And when built on Earth, would it be a Universal Progress Model </blockquote> ...... for New Prime Alien Life on Earth.
Ok ... that 's it lit [light blue touch paper and retire] El Reg, Now .... we wait? :-) .....http://youtu.be/WP6gbxskEuw
While I think its certainly possible I think its highly unlikely. I'm sure there were many who thought it was a bit of a loony idea when JFK made the moon challenge but with determination, the will and lots and lots of money they succeeded. However, in this case it's nothing more than vote catching from a creepy old politician desperate for a bit of power. Shame really as its the sort of thing we really need to happen to progress space exploration further.
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