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Charles Dharapak / AP
Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney campaigns at Astrotech Space Operations in Cape Canaveral, Fla.
TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- In sharp contrast to Newt Gingrich's visit to this area at the heart of America's space program two days earlier, in which he promised to put a permanent American colony on the moon by 2020, Mitt Romney delivered remarks here Friday afternoon that were devoid of multibillion-dollar promises, but also of specifics as to what precisely America's mission in space should be going forward.
"In the politics of the past, to get [the vote of] the Space Coast, I’d come here and promise hundreds of billions of dollars." Romney said. "Or I'd lay out what my mission is. Here's what we're going to accomplish. I’m not going to do that. I know that's something that's very attractive, very popular but it's simply the wrong thing to do."
Related: Gingrich promises US moon colony by 2020
"Politicians love the idea of coming in and saying what they're going to do without having studied it, without having carried out the analysis and gotten the data, done the hard work. I won't do that," Romney continued. "I spent my life in the private sector ... Before you made tough decisions, you did some work. You started off by saying what's the objective? And then you said let's gather the data to see what information we have, and then you create hypothesis to see what different choices might be, and then you choose one. You select that as your mission. You expect a leader to deliver and get it done.
Romney proceeded to describe the importance of the space program for commerce, defense, and for dealing with what he referred to as "existential threats," like the climate or catastrophe. But Romney, displaying the deference to data and study described above, did not lay out a specific mission for the American space program, which has been left largely rudderless and shrinking since the retirement of the space shuttle earlier this year.
"I’m not going to come here today and tell you precisely what the mission will be. I’m going to tell you how I’m going to get there," Romney said. "That is by bringing in people from the Department of Defense, the Air Force and other branches of service. Astrophysicists from some of the leading institutions in the world, along with people from the commercial sector, the industrial sector, as well as people from NASA. And come together and talk about each of those missions, each of those objectives. And then determine which mission for NASA, which mission for space will most effectively carry out those missions."
Related: Last man on moon, other space leaders back Romney
This afternoon's event fit a pattern of smaller, more specifically targeted events in Florida, in lieu of the large rallies that made up the bulk of Romney's campaign stops in New Hampshire and South Carolina -- reflecting a renewed focus on messaging, campaign advisers say. The crowd of a few hundred here was vocal and supportive, a good sign for Romney, who lost Brevard county to John McCain by five points in 2008.
Friday night, Romney will break the small-event mold and hold one final event of the day in Orlando -- a grassroots rally in which he will accept the endorsement of Puerto Rico's governor, Luis Fortuno. The endorsement could help Romney win over Hispanic voters here, who make up 11 percent of registered Republicans in Florida, and who broke heavily in favor of Sen. John McCain four years ago.
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*Bangs head off of desk*
Wasn't it ONLY yesterday - Willard was condemning Newt for his Moon Colony foolishness?
Willard really is a Pander-Bear!
Problem is, his base is too stupid to realize they are being PLAYED!
Gawd forbid any of these GNOP clowns were to possess a shred of convictions!
We won’t hear that speech again until he gets to Houston.
Dennis is right. Mindless pandering about space in Fla and Houston.
This is why there will be a legitimate Ron Paul type candidate in the very near future.
None of them can help themselves with the promises/proclamations that cost Trillions.
Bush = Obama = Mitt. Meanwhile we blow throw $4 billion per day in new debt.
Astounding.
Oh well, hide the tri tip and brisket, HavaBBQ here I come.
[None of them can help themselves with the promises/proclamations that cost Trillions.]
...yeabut...yeabut...yeabut...it's a MOONBASE!
You're cool with that, right junior? Trillions of $$ we don't have (after all, you said so yourself...we're broke, right?) to go to something we don't need?
Better start "creatin' those jobs" Spanky...
Depending on if there is contention for Alabama, then you could hear it there. NASA has a fairly large presence in AL. The Alabama primary is on March 13th and the Texas primary isn't until April 3rd. There are three other states and one territory that also vote on March 13th. They are Hawaii, Mississippi, Missouri and American Samoa.
lawl does Romney opt for the sun tan in Hawaii and American Samoa or does he try to compete with Newt in the southern states?
Ha! I thought he was going to launch a missionary study! I think I know what his position on that might be. ;-)
Fesity you shoulnt bring up the issue of pandering..
President Obama was busy today visiting a college campus and shamelessly pandering to college students...promising freebies from Uncle Sam, and threatening colleges by ordering them to lower their tuition !
Pathetic.
Cynthia,
LOL, Great post.
Spanky - isn't it sweet of mickey to jump up and reply to your post without even reading it!! It is a wonder that new yorkers don't send her packing for being so inane.
Hey bob-188... fiesty won't care. Like many FR libs, Obama can never be wrong. Why if obama claims that the sun rises in the west and sets in the east, fiesty will go outside, face south at dawn, turn to her left, call it facing west and watch the sunrise. just so obama isn't wrong.
Oh, Spanks is just Lost in Space. ;-) Mickey, where ya' been? xxxooo
Malibu Mitt ... "YOUR FIRED " ! What a lying scumbag.
It's unbelievable that anyone can even stand to sit there and listen to Mitt. In reading the piece, it seems Mitt is very noncommital on what he will do if anything. This speech said nothing. I'm very certain as president he would never push a moon base, but I am also pretty sure that we wouldn't see much more manned space action under a Romney administration than we see now under Obama. Manned space exploration just doesn't seem affordable or even necessary to me. We learn much from unmanned space exploration, the Hubble, and radio telescopes and observatories on earth.
Wayne, it's true that we have learned so much about the world, the solar system, and the universe from the unmanned program. But the public pays 10x more attention to the manned program. This is what defines the leading nation in space.
America's unmanned successes are absolutely unmatched by any other nation. But currently our manned program is less capable than Russia and China. That is soon to change thanks to the Commericial Crew Development program (CCDev) with NASA funding being awarded to companies like SpaceX, Boeing, Sierra Nevada, and Orbital Sciences. Soon after the monster SLS rocket and Orion spacecraft are planned to launch Americans back into deep space for the 1st time since Apollo.
Mitt has not shown me that he is not even aware of the existence of these programs or the fact that every imaginable "study" has already been done over the last several years.
Newt, while apparently more knowledgeable on the subject, may be over-committing with the moon base within 8 years proposal... it would represent a major shift from the current plan which is the "Flexible Path" (manned cislunar flight / no landing; Near-earth asteroid; Mars moon; Mars)...
However, I also want to point out that cost of space flight will be coming DOWN now that the COTS/CCDev program is literally taking off. When you look at SpaceX's apparent price per kg of cargo, and Elon Musk's ambitions to develop the "Falcon Heavy" rocket, it's not hard to imagine a very affordable permanent moon base for even less than the total $$ spent constructing the Internation Space Station ISS. Particularly if we make it an international effort.
One last point people always seem to forget: NASA currently recieves 0.6% of the Federal budget; roughly what our military spends in a week, and even less when you consider the value returned in terms of new technology and status as global leader on this frontier. There is a lot of potential for the future in space-based industry.
So when people say "we can't afford NASA", I have to call BS.
OHHHH Gooooody! Another Blue Ribbon panel to study something! how many millions will be spent on that? Millions NASA could put to good use!
Sorry, thought this was about Space Ghost...
(Romney may have been a guest...)
Huffington Post:
WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration, state attorneys general, and, perhaps, the nation's largest banks are close to a final settlement on the years-long struggle over allegations of massive foreclosure fraud, according to several sources familiar with the talks. And the final details of the arrangement, according to the source who revealed them, will apparently not preclude prosecutors and regulators from taking legal action against many of the common abuses during the house bubble. It remains to be seen whether all parties will ultimately sign off on the language.
The settlement is worth $25 billion, a sum which will be distributed to homeowners who were wrongfully foreclosed on as well as those who remain underwater. In addition, banks could still face future legal action over 12 specific violations.
**************
So damn much to clean up from years of greed, right Willard? Didn't he make money off of this tragedy?
Talk about the Space Program while the Obama Administration continues to right a million wrongs.
And already several states are refusing to go along - the settlement is not enough apparently.
Remember - Holder and several others in the Holder DOJ used to work at the law firms that represented the big evil banks. It'd be real tough for them to actually go full bore with a lawsuit.
Too many conflicts.
But regardless there is no effort at all to fix the underlying problems with Freddie and Fannie and that is the real problem.
[Too many conflicts.]
Yeah, see...now Mittens is cutting into Noots
moonbaterr...moonbase idea.So now you going throw your support behind Willard now? Or you sticking with your man Noot...
I mean, we can't have TWO "moonbases"...can we Spanky?
Another government snafu in the making, but hey obama needs votes.
Flip-Flop in space..this guy will say whatever it takes, to any crowd...'Space corporations are people too'.
The zero gravity will really make the flip flopping easier for Mitt.
The panda---even though it comes from China---the official animal mascot of the Romney campaign.
LOL!
To boldly go where NO dolphin as gone before! lol
From the Book of Mormon, Chapter 5 verse 11.
"And verily if we take all of our dozens of wives and thousands of children to the moon, only one man can lead us, and his name is Glove...."
Well, maybe it lost a bit in translation. This was in the original Yek language.
Another religious bigot heard from...
just the beginning, from the, ahem, " tolerant" left.
Axelrod is planning his usual gutter attack campaign.
We're gonna need some way off this rock for when the global warming deniers ensure this place becomes inhabitable. Go NASA!
There should be an "un" there somewhere.
"I won't do that," Romney continued. "I spent my life in the private sector ..."
Geez, I think Romney's got that same bug that was at work over on The Week Ahead thread today:
"I spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sectorI spent my life in the private sector....."
Either that or somebody needs to nudge the turntable arm a little bit.....
Oh my God, JoAnne, I just realized, I too have spent my life in the private sector! Romney must be my candidate!
And he does his own laundry once per week when they are on the road...
in a starched dress shirt and jeans.
Credit Tina Dupuy, managing editor of Crooks and Liars
From newspaper editorial, "A new spin (cycle) on GOP race"
tinadupuy@yahoo.com
"Not as stupid as you think" No, stupider, clearly. A dense lefty.
Admit it Bob, the more time you spend around us lefties, the more you start to see how ridiculous Romney is.
More like....
the more time you spend around us lefties, the more you start to see how ridiculous FR progressive/liberals are.
I'll bet the jeans are ironed, too.
He might claim to have spent his life in the private sector, but the only reason he's a viable candidate, and the reason he will be the nominee, is that he was Governor of Massachusetts. Just saying.
Time to sober up Boob1887910...
Don't you wish YOU read all of these sources of information =
like all of the enlightened, knowledgable ones you keep complaining about?
ROTFL!!!
People, people! We can't afford this bickering! We need to colonize the Moon by 2020!
This flip-flopper will say anything to garner votes in Florida and win the nomination. Florida's 29 Electoral votes are very important after the Bush-Gore fiasco. Florida people know the space program brought jobs to Florida. What Romney doesn't talk about is the disparancy between the top 1% and the average Joe. President Obama paid 25 percent of his gross income in federal tax, compared to Romney’s 13.7 percent. Equal and proportionate taxation across the board should be the norm. 6.2% of wages up to an annual wage maximum ($106,800 in 2010) for Social Security and a tax of 1.45% of all wages for Medicare. Romney and the super-rich do not pay anywhere near that rate because of past legislation by the Congress to tax at a lower rate on certain other means of income. The average American working for wages will pay taxes on $106,800. The average wage earner will not make more than that. People like Romney, Obama, Gingrich, Paul and Santorum have other sources of income taxed at a lower rate, because the Congress has allowed it. There is no valid excuse for this to continue. Social Security would never have had any funding problems if ALL sources of income, no matter what the source, were taxed up to $1,000,000.00 dollars. Add to this the Congress borrowed huge sums of monies and just pays interest. Corporate taxes could be lowered to compete on the world stage and get corporations back to America.
Romney sounds exactly like Obama. He (Mitt) is going to leave it to a committee. Some leadership! Mitt can never "commit" to anything without checking with the pollsters. No genuine commitment to anything! He's an empty suit, except for his wallet!
Mitt Romney was born in mexico when his parents were on a church mission. Has he produced a birth certificate? He becomes more like his idol Obama everyday. BIG difference is Obama is not a hypocrite.
Mittens says "Me Too! Me Too!" The whole GOP presidential contending field stinks like a bucket of dead carp left out in the hot sun.
Obama has basically gutted NASA and thousands of jobs that go with it... it will be hard for him to overcome that fact in the general... hope and change... ask Orlando about it... but watch out you may have a few four letter words thrown at ya.
A lot of upset "middle class" Americans down there!!
Maxx...you might want to do a bit of research on that...and see who really gutted NaSA's budget. (hint..."he who must not be named".)
and if the space program gets back on their feet, people won't be able to buy a house but they will have houses to rent to them. why not invest in the space program if you want it?, and the investors will have no trouble renting them a home. taxpayers can't afford it right now. just another way to skirt around real issues in Fla.
"Romulian Romney" has been living in outer space his whole life, and he follows the tax codes from his home planet of Romulus. The "Romulian" has NO clue of who the Middle Class are, and the "Romulian" sure has NO clue of who the Working Poor are. The "Romulian" wrongly thinks that "Corporations are People." So when he worked at Bain Capital. How many people did the "Romulian" kill off economically?? The "Romiian" is in the top 0.06% of Americans, and he will cut the Capital Gains Tax to 0. Wow! That is so "Alien" to 99% of America. The real reason the Romulian does not want America to have a moon base. Is a human base on the moon would be an economic, and military threat to the Romulian Empire. Since the "Romulian" strongly believes in outsourcing American Jobs. He would love to outsource construction jobs to build the "Human's Moon Base" to hard working rich Romulians. The Romulian has huge tax havens in Bermuda, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands. How much has that cost in revenue for our nation?? Do your own math America! The Clown Show on Thursday was the "The Battle Of The Cosmic Clowns."
"Romulian Romney" needs some place to park his Romulian Bird Of Prey. The concept of a moon base for GOP/RNC Moonbats" would be such a great tax haven. If "Nutty Newt" wrongly claims he has "People Power??" Does that mean the "Romulian" have "Alien Powers??"
Consult with engineers and scientists? Why bother? The GOP base sure doesn't believe in science or engineering. Ricky Sanctimonium dismisses that "junk science" called climate study.
Two Bitt Mitts said “My view is that we don’t know what’s causing climate change on this planet,” ... “And the idea of spending trillions and trillions of dollars to try to reduce CO2 emissions is not the right course for us.”
So why spend taxpayer dollars to study the concept of space travel if the GOP is going to ignore any findings inconsistent with their biases?
BTW, this is another flip for Mr. Flop. Four months before the above quote, Mr. Romney said. I believe based on what I read that the world is getting warmer. And number two, I believe that humans contribute to that.”
Has anyone seen two candidates pander as much as Willard Romney and Leroy Gingrich?
Well lets see.....hmm, maybe Obama, Kerry, Clinton, Gore. Like there is something different about the Democrats. At least in Florida Romney was honest that there would be no explicit promises for boosting space, just a study on where it would be best to allocate the meager resources we have for space exploration. I would think we all could agree it is something worth pursuing. Certainly Obama wasn't pandering when he advocated for the expansion of natural gas hydrofracking from the Marcellus shale, of course with the strong opposition of the environmentalists I don't believe there will be any follow through anytime soon. Oh maybe that was pandering....well that was only one example.
The private sector is vigorously pursuing science and recreation in space. The space station is continuing to contribute valuable research across scientific disciplines. Another budget busting boondoggle to occupy space for perceived exceptionalism is exceptionally pointless and wasteful. So was the plan to occupy Iraq. WMD turned out to be a Witless Major Disaster that denied over 4,000 Americans and over 100,000 Iraqi civilians the right to life. Saddam wasn't worth a damn to begin with.
But Moon Beam Newt wants to give prizes to go to the moon and Mars. He wants people to live on the moon. Why?
I wish someone would ask all candidates: "The Chinese have announced recently that they intend to build a moon base within 15 years and are interested in mining the moon (See References Below), given that, do you think America should have a role on the moon in the future or yield to the Chinese on both a moon base and mining?"
Whatever you politics, you cannot really stand in the way of the building evidence that China is planning the same thing. This is a new space race and as an American, you have to ask yourself, Would you rather the US establish a presence on the moon along with China? Or would you rather the Chinese have a permanent base there but the US have nothing?
China will do it anyways and they are saying their moon base will be there within 15 years....that said, either we also lay claim to new territory (or be able to enforce current treaties) or we yield those rights and face the consequences.
There have been many published reports recently that the Chinese are planning a moon base for purposes of mining Titaniumm, helium-3, or other minerals which are plentiful on the moon but somewhat rare here. Many of the published reports are from reputable sources yet some will say that it might be Chinese blustering. Still, given the evidence, the weight of evidence favors that China has a plan and have already taken steps towards a moon base.
Second, if the Chinese have a base there but the US has no presence there, even though there are treaties regarding mineral rights, they are not enforceable.
http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/outerspt.html
As such, the Chinese could then set the price of Titanium on the world market. Titanium is important because it is used in a ton of high tech applications and is vital to the future.
That said, Gingrich's ideas are not off base...rather, they are right on a moon base is vital to America's future (though he has trouble with his message saying it would be to create a state instead of telling what China is doing). As far as the money for it, if we start mining, that will more than pay for itself.
Hey, don't take my word for it (since people will attack me just for siding with Newt...I am a scientist and I would love to one day work on the moon). Here are some quick references...there are tons more but these articles sum it up. And, if the articles are wrong, someone point to articles in legitimate sources that say why.
http://news.discovery.com/space/china-moon-resources-bigelow-111020.html
or
http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-manned-moon-massive-lunar-land-grab-215600572.html
or
http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/09/titanium-treasure-found-on-moon.html
Some facts for those that are not wanting to click links:
"A new map of the Moon has revealed an abundance of titanium ore that is up to 10 times richer than on Earth, a finding that could one day lead to a lunar mining colony, astronomers said."
"Within about 15 years, China could have a permanent presence on the moon, and be laying claim to its resources." It is expected that China, which has no debt, cash reserves of $3 trillion, technical skills, a long-term strategy and strong national support, will lay claim to raw materials on the moon in about 15 years.
Helium-3 is a potential fuel for fusion energy reactors.
Lastly, if you did own a mining company, what CEO would not want to have unlimited access to 10 times the amount of titanium and other minerals? It seems it would make business sense as well.
i say its time for us to go and stay on the moon but if you think any leader of the us now or in the very near future is gonna push us their then all are wrong as till we get this country back on the right track and sound footing then all are dreaming.
this country is broke and are leaders are corrupt and only serving this interest that pays them the most and or worrying about the next job with a private company that wants to use them.
stop paying them a check for the rest of their life and stop them from being a lobbyist for 5 years after they get out then you will see solid people start to come out and want to serve and no lawyers as the mambo jumbo they write up would make a monkey want to scratch his butt, just in plain writing where its plainly states the way not twenty ways if you look at it.
we are hurting people and need some people who want to serve and not be a business in the making. time for this country to get back to the basics of hard work and saving for a rainy day and wanting to get a education instead of liking our pants down to our butt thinking that is cool and hanging out at the mall all day and being able to talk and use words instead of slang because we are unable to speak the english langue due to poor schooling, we need to get proud again and be Americans.
The promise to take a look see... I would imagine you can't take that to the bank... On the other hand you can take a look see at what else has been put forward.