E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Efrem Lukatsky / AP file
Newt Gingrich says Mitt Romney's space plan doesn't go far enough.
BELOIT, Wis. – One-time presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich, who promised during the GOP primary to create a U.S. moon colony if elected, criticized Mitt Romney’s plan for space exploration as not being “robust” enough.
“The Romney plan for space starts to move in the right direction but could be much more robust,” the former House speaker told NBC News a day after the Republican presidential nominee unveiled his “Securing U.S. Leadership in Space” plan. “We could move into space much, much faster than we are. Romney is better than [President] Obama on space but could be bolder and more visionary.”
Saturday, Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, laid out the campaign’s plan during a townhall meeting in Orlando, Fla., and accused President Barack Obama of “dismantling” America’s space program.
"We are near the Space Coast, I think it’s important that we have a space program that has a clear space mission, a space program that we know where we are heading in the future, and a space program that is the unequivocal leader on the planet in space travel and space research,” Ryan said at the University of Central Florida. “We don’t have that right now.”
The Wisconsin congressman continued: “Mitt Romney and I believe that America must lead in space. Mitt Romney and I believe we need a mission for NASA, a mission for a space program, and we also believe that this is an integral part of our national security.”
During the long Republican primary season, Gingrich regularly spoke about fixing the space program after the cancellation of American space shuttles.
Speaking in Cocoa, Fla., at the end of January, Gingrich vowed the United States would “have the first permanent base on the moon” and by the end of 2020 the country would have "the first continuous propulsion system in space" capable of allowing people travel to Mars.
Romney, whom Gingrich later endorsed for president after suspending his campaign in May, mocked the former House speaker for proposing a lunar colony during one of the several GOP debates earlier in the year.
"I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, 'You're fired,'" Romney said at the debate in Jacksonville, Fla., co-hosted by CNN, the Republican Party of Florida and the Hispanic Leadership Network. "The idea that corporate America wants to go off to the moon and build a colony there, it may be a big idea, but it's not a good idea."
Under a President Romney administration, there would be four space priorities: focusing NASA, partnering internationally, strengthening security, and revitalizing industry.
The steps put forward by the Romney-Ryan ticket do not go far enough in Gingrich’s eyes.
“I was with Richard Branson in Yalta last week and his commitment to a dynamic private secure entrepreneurial model that works with innovators and risk-takers to put people into space inexpensively (compared to government rates) is a big example of the future,” Gingrich said in an email Sunday.
Branson, the entrepreneur and CEO of Virgin Airlines, is launching Branson's Virgin Galactic which will offer commercial space flights as the government closes down it’s space shuttle operations.
Leave a Comment:
Pfffft - is all I can say. At least we see Gingrich in his element - when his candidate is down - he kicks him in the face. Next thing we will see is Gingrich for Obama. He seems to trade his candidates as fast as he trades in his wives.
There Newt goes again! This whole moon base thing sunk him and now he thinks Romney needs to take up on the idea. Hey, wait a minute............Newt, whose side are you on? Have you left the dark side?
Actually, I think we learn a lot more about our universe from probes, remotely controlled vehicles, the Hubble, and earth bound telescopes and radio telescopes than from manned space flight. It's cheaper and faster to learn with these tools than what that tool, Newt proposes.
Watching men walk on the moon was very exciting, but manned space flight is extraordinarlily expensive and too slow to visit other planets let alone other solar systems. They are having a heck of a time figuring out how to get folks back from Mars once we get them there. We are not ready for Star Trek. It's better to sort hings out here at home.
Oh, nonsense! Gingrich has always been critical of Romney... for all the right reasons!
Jan 11, 2012:
I don't think much of Gingrich, either, but fair is fair! This is not a change - Newt has been critical of Romney since before he won the nomination!
Newt Newts RobMeHood & RyRand for TeaReTarded plan, Newts out to save the World !!!!
Newt, where's that money gonna come from, grandma's social security check? I thought you guys were all about fiscal conservatism, but you want to colonize the moon which cannot support life. And they call us libs moonbats, lol.
Let me see, Americans need more job and these teanutbags want to send people to the F_N Moon.
Really?
Newt, I would bet that after your money boys (Adelson and the Koch's) figure out they can't buy an election, they'd be more than happy to finance a moon colony for you. I'm all for you being the first inhabitant and you can take Romney, Ryan, Palin, and Santorum with you. Just think of the possibilities of a Tea Party Moon Colony! Go get it and LEAVE already!
This Lunatic Newter-ed Grinch wants to colonize the moon - remember his policy proposal during the primary?
I think Grinch is really thinking about going there to find his fourth wife - you know - a woman from the moon won't know the difference between human erection and impotence - and ...you know...Newtered Grinch is ...newtered.
a lunar colony??? what a lunatic
Listen, I'm all for space exploration, and especially that the U.S. reassert itself as the dominant player in that arena. BUT, for someone from the party that insists on cutting spending at the expense of all else, Newts comments are, to say the least, in conflict with one of his party's biggest platform planks.
After all, space exploration costs big-time money.
It's a good idea to send all Tea Potty ... plus Newt ... to the moon ...as pioneers in the Lunar Frontier!
'
Hey ... don't come back...
they are rich enough to pay for their own one-way ticket, such as Mitt.
RedDevPS: 'The Grinch for Obama'; lets hope not.
4 more 4 44
Hey Newt, this is why you are sitting on the sidelines with your bimbo blonde who does not speak. Totally out of touch and unfocused but great you added more fuel to the fire............
Ah money, such a bad thing right? You know what's worse? Running up debt................
I think a moon colony for teabaggers is a splendid idea. Now we need to get them to agree to have their taxes raised to pay for it.
Newt, we have no money.
Id say let the tea bags go to the moon. But they'd ruin the moons ecosystem, run up its debt and start wars with mars' two little moons.
Let me see, Americans need more job and these teanutbags want to send people to the F_N Moon.
Really?
Do you know how many jobs sending people to the moon could support?
Another campaigning lie from Romney/Ryan, and Gingritch is ideologically-blinded enough to go along with it.
Under the rule of the right-wing, Americans going into space WON'T happen. They'll make sure there won't be any money in ANY budget to do such things, EXCEPT to WAGE MORE WARS against non-christian countries so only wealthy GOP Tea Partiers like the Koch Bros. can profit from it all.
Only a republican could make war a campaign promise, and there are so many possibilities for Mitt to choose from. That Mittwit is calling Russia our biggest enemy. I can think of two dictators who felt the same way, and now Mitt wants to join their club.
Both presidential candidates are weak on space exploration. So many good things have come from our space program and yet NASA is less than 5% of the budget and getting smaller, while DoD gets the biggest slice of the pie. Is dominating other countries more important than sending Man to the stars?
Think what we could learn developing the technology to maintain life on the Moon (or Mars). Look at everything our primitive space explorations have given us so far: instant global communications, computers, GPS, weather forecasting, ballpoint pens, solar energy, teflon, and let's not forget velcro. Couldn't live without it.
One thing no one can do is accuse Gingrich of being a weak attack dog. That's been his career in a nutshell.
No. How many?
Landing men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources ($24 billion), ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.[14
Quite a few jobs were created during the last moon landing and it also furthered research into various technologies.
So Satanick, whose taxes do you want to raise to cover what would be a multiple of 2012 equivalent of $24B 1962 dollars? This is because we are discussing a permanent presence on the moon, not just a trip and back. I am not necessarily against an increased budget for NASA but the righties who whine that "we don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem" and at the same time want a moon colony can't have it both ways!
I do agree that the government should fund technology and President Obama has been pretty consistent in making that a priority. Too bad the Republicans try to block him at every turn.
i hate to admit it, but the windbag has a point.
Other statistics on NASA's economic impact may be found in the 1976 Chase Econometrics Associates, Inc. reports ("The Economic Impact of NASA R&D Spending: Preliminary Executive Summary.", April 1975. Also: "Relative Impact of NASA Expenditure on the Economy.", March 18, 1975) and backed by the 1989 Chapman Research report, which examined 259 non-space applications of NASA technology during an eight year period (1976–1984) and found more than:
$21.6 billion in sales and benefits;— 352,000 (mostly skilled) jobs created or saved,and;— $355 million in federal corporate income taxesAccording to the "Nature" article, these 259 applications represent only 1% of an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 Space program spin-offs."
Lets do them all one better and build a starship! You could send it the next closest star-its only 25,000 billion miles. Newt and his space colony supporters could go on the maiden voyage.
Al: We don't have to raise taxes. We need to reallocate money from DoD to NASA. The US govt has an enormous revenue stream, but spends it poorly. In one area at least, the GOP is right--we have a spending problem.
Hey we can cut money from education, cut pell grants, and cut teachers salaries and pensions, to pay for high tech space travel, engineered by the Chinese.
Newt to Romney- To the moon Alice! To the moon!
AG99 (#1.19) -- "...NASA is less than 5% of the budget..."
Technically true, but I think you missed a decimal point. NASA is actually less than .5% of the budget.
I agree with all your opinions that investment in research and technology to further space exploration would benefit our country in many ways.
Satanick, do you know how many jobs we could create if we fully staffed our schools, police departments, fire departments, fixed all our infrastructure like roads, bridges, rail lines, school buildings etc, tore down all the abandoned buildings pulling our cities down, fully staff our border patrol to secure our borders, upgraded our Internet and communications, pay our military a living wage so that none of them would be on food stamps, repairing the dilapidated facilities in our national parks, increased enviromental clean up, etc etc etc etc? I like the space program, but where's the money for it?
We could have had Condos on Saturn if we had not wasted and wasted Trillions on the Bush wars.
Newt -- you're a has been, wanna-be, never was. You were yesterday's news 13 years ago. You FAILED as a college prof. You FAILED as Speaker. You FAILED as a presidential candidate among a very poor field. You FAILED as a husband. You FAILED as a father. Nobody much cares what you have to say about anything.
B White-519014 --
I thought we were talking about the moon, not the stars. But since you brought it up, let's use a smaller number. You say 25,000 billion miles. I say: "Only 4.3 light years!" Come on, haven't you heard the saying that the longest journey begins with a single step?
By the time I get through reading this thread, I might find myself defending Newt. Don't make me do that people! I might not be able to sleep tonight!
Speaking of space travelers, how come these aliens never land at a university or museum of science, how come those space aliens always land in some remote campground where some poor republican voting militia member type of guy has been camping with his buddies, leaving him with an empty 30 pack, and claiming he was gang probed by spacemen. Ever notice those spacemen pretty much wear the same outfit as trail bike riders. Just saying, you would think just once they would land around some liberals with an elite education.
I see your point, but that was back when the US held a significant advantage over the rest of the world in technology. It's changed a lot since then. First, I don't think those numbers are required anymore and how many Americans are trained to do these? When I see the employees at JPL, which handle the Mars Rover Expeditions, they look like a bunch of foreigners to me. And to reiterate Al in Visalia, where is the money going to come from. Certainly not private investors, that's for sure.
Shady G....."What the hell is going on with our media?"
That is what happens when you marry the Obama administration (East Wing, White House press, and DOJ) with Media Matters who is run by Mr. Soros.
There is NO media anymore.....the "news" sites are all spoon fed "OPINION SITES".
Perhaps we should repair and replace the interstate highways that collapse into the river below them before we colonize the moon.
Except for fox news right? oh yea... listen to this liberal rant by fox
To anyone paying the slightest bit of attention to facts, Ryan’s speech was an apparent attempt to set the world record for the greatest number of blatant lies and misrepresentations slipped into a single political speech. On this measure, while it was Romney who ran the Olympics, Ryan earned the gold.The good news is that the Romney-Ryan campaign has likely created dozens of new jobs among the legions of additional fact checkers that media outlets are rushing to hire to sift through the mountain of cow dung that flowed from Ryan’s mouth. Said fact checkers have already condemned certain arguments that Ryan still irresponsibly repeated.
Leave it to Newt to delve into issues that truly matter to average Americans. When you are unemployed, child has just gotten shot in Afghanistan, and some H1B Visa guy just took your job at HP; a Mars shot is just the tonic you need to chase away the blues.
Thank God these GOP'ers have a laser-like focus on what matters.
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012
This thing is all but over for Robme. Wait'll the debates!! All the King's horses.......
Coinfl, thanks for your comment, I'm still laughing. PS I really do wish we could travel to another star.
I'm not big on the whole idea, or execution of political negativity. But the 'circular firing squad' that leading Republican voices have assembled around THEIR OWN party's nominees for president and vice president over the past week has been GREATLY satisfying!
:)
OBAMA/BIDEN 2012 - ROMNEY 1040
MatCauthon
Many conservatives don't care for Fox either.
Conservatives want the underlying truths, not the opinions.
Conservatives wouldn't know truth, no matter what. Conservatives want what they have bee purveying for decades, repeating lies thinking that a majority will accept the lie as truth.
The rats must be jumping ship, first they abandon Romnye, and now their altar, Fox news.
Jon-1321288:
You are confusing Republicans for Conservatives - they are not the same. There are Conservatives in each political party.
Layton-3733410 said.......
Newt, I would bet that after your money boys (Adelson and the Koch's) figure out they can't buy an election, they'd be more than happy to finance a moon colony for you. I'm all for you being the first inhabitant and you can take Romney, Ryan, Palin, and Santorum with you. Just think of the possibilities of a Tea Party Moon Colony! Go get it and LEAVE already!
Good idea Layton BUT you forgot 2 very important people to add to the list. Sarah "moonbeam you bet" Palin and Michelle "space cadet 3rd class" Bachmann. Not only will it make this planet a better place but it will allow for a "New Eden" on the moon! Could be the start of a new species "Teatardis in Uranus"
Newty Fruity Looney Tunes are just as relevant today as they ever were. Not at all.
.
And the republicans say government cannot create jobs nor create wealth. Newt to the moon. This is a lot better idea then his contract on America.
Newt and his gang of neocons have a terrible fiscal record. And they are the ones who started wars in Afghanistan and Iraq promising a 'cakewalk' paid for by Iraq's oil revenues. These m-f...kers should all be in jail.
I find the whole idea of the current Republican party supporting space programs laughable.
http://www.spacepolicyonline.com/news/ryan-budget-would-cut-more-from-nasa-noaa-budget-functions
This is fishing for an argument that might play / win in Florida because nothing else they have tried has worked. The issue isn't that I'm opposed to spending Federal money on exploration - I'm not opposed - the issue is that NASA budgets have been in the Tea Party's gunsights for quite a while now. Up until Romney's announcement, the official NASA doctrine of the Republican party has been "starve the beast."
Please tell me as a rational moderate why I would believe in this about face?
Space....that which exists between Romney's ears.
Newt knows he cant win a presidential race on Earth, so he wants to be the first President of the Moon!
“We could move into space much, much faster than we are." - Newt Gingrich.
Son, if you "move into space" any quicker than recent photos of you demonstrate, your mass will set up its own black hole.
So moonbat Newt wants to spend money we don't have to go somewhere we've already been. Let's get the economy back on track first and then consider going back to the moon.
Right. (and corporate money has a lot to do with it) Republicans don't have opinions, they voice what corporations and/or the military industrial complex wants.
The Moon Bat is out again !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Adler-273784 --
Investing our last dollars in infrastructure, education, and technological advancement could be the best way to get our economy back on track. Please don't lose hope. And please don't make me defend Newt!
Why anyone would care, report on, or comment on anything Newt has to say (myself included) beggars belief. Newt, you are obsolete, a footnote. Take Madonna and go back to the 90's ....
COinFL, there is NO money. We are over $16 TRILLION in debt. Have we forgotten what this means?
The National Debt continues to grow at $3.85 billion PER DAY!
Time to pay the Piper, folks.
Watch www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EW5IdwltaAc?rel=0
This just in, Romney wants to get Americans into space. Note: space travel will only be for the wealthy and paid for by taxing the middle class.......that is all.......we now return you to the Romney campaign.
Space? I'm having a hard enough time navigating their flip flopping, redacted statements (saving parts of obamacare on meet the press), confusing/infuriating foreign policy, and the real final frontier is; Romney's tax statements behind the last two years. Let's leave space to people who can remember their own statewide health care plans, and marathon times.
Mitt Romney = Lost in Space.
And this my dear is the beginning of the Fall Out of the GOP! Mark your calendars. It is 2012.
There are more to come.
Shhhhhh.........Romney is a Cylon..........Shhhhhhh
Newt wanted an Open Marriage:
Newt’s Ex Wife said, “How about an Open Door Policy”. Then she walked real Lady Like to the Front Door …Opened it…..Grabbed Newt by his Hair and Gonads and threw his Sorry A $ $ to da Curb. Take that you Lying, Cheating, Two Faced, Back Stabbing, Typical Republican Pig. Ouch!
Is Planet “Boehner” shaped like a “Woody”?
no shaped like the p---y that he is.
No planet Boehner is shaped like a crescent moon. It's easy to pick out in the night sky. It's bright orange. Newt wants a moon colony for 3 obvious reasons. First with only 10 % of Earth's gravity he would only weigh 40 pounds there. Secondly, his ex wives would have a hard time getting their alimony from him there . Lastly, Callista has family from there. Everyone could tell she wasn't from this world !
This just in………The Curiosity Rover just found Mitt “F da Poor” Romney’s Tax Records on Mars. They were lying by Suitcases Full of Money marked “Offshore Account” for Mittens.
You BetCha…..Fer Sure.
Maybe Newt just wants to help Mitt prove there really IS a planet Kolob
One good thing about those Republican and TeaBilly Conservatives. If you give them enough String they will hang themselves every time!
If the Republicans and their Stepchild “The Evil Violent Tea Party” aren’t Inbreeding they are Infighting. You Bet Cha.
I think these Tea Baggers need to have a “TeaBotomy”. Fer Sure………
String theory?
Newt knows Williad is done so it's time to start running for 2016. He could hook up with Michelle B since they are both space cadets.
Bachmann is beyond a space cadet !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sarah Palin can see Mars from her Kitchen Wndow.
You BetCha....Fer Sure.
Do they have a Russia on Mars ???????????
Don't know, maybe they have 57 States though
Paul, if the worst thing you can dredge up on Obama is his 57 states gaffe he made over four years ago, then he either has been a pretty damn good President or your arguments against him are even weaker.
At the right time, if the night sky is clear, I too can see Mars from my kitchen window.
Geesh!!!!!!!!! Did I actually just defend Sarah Palin?
They saw the country of Africa on Mars.
Newt, I think Mitt knows his leaders Joe and Brigham have been colonizing the planets for about 150 years now so don't worry, just be ready to join his church or else.
Da Newt is determined to find a Planet that thinks 10 wife's and 40 affairs is da "Norm".
You BetCha.....Fer Sure.
Kolob apparently has been found and it awaits.
Obama 2012
Why oh why is anything that Newt Gingrich said news?
It's not, it's the only thing MSNBC can post to get the Liberals fired up. Now do you really want MSNBC to post what's currently happening to this country? I'm figuring since MSNBC doesn't report on what's going on, it didn't happen.
Sueb1: It is a slow news day and we need a laugh.
Obama/Biden 2012
Queen Ann told the press them if they didn't lay off and declare it Pity Party Romney day, she would force them into eating her homemade Welsh Cakes covered in
bitterrarebit sauce.All these politicians create fantasy programs but don't tell us how they are going to fund. We should concentrate on the economic recovery and creating jobs thru innovative thinking.
It is only news because BSNBC found someone who would criticize Romney for not wanting to increase our debt with a new unfunded program. Newt is nothing but a holdover from the old go along to get along congressmen who have spent us into this debacle.
what a kook, Romney wants to cut taxs and add 5 or 6 trillion to the deficet and good ole Newt wants to go to the moon and start a new race of space babys, the GOP is a bunch of clowns,never passed a tax break they didn't like (unless it's going to favor the poor) and never saw a way they couldn't start a war and then screw up by picking the wrong country to invade. i think i'm going to run for congress, great pay, short hours and only 180 days of work a year, free flights home on week ends best medical plan on earth at the lowest costtravel the globe and collect perdeim to stay in the best of the best hotels and then get to keep what you didn't spend. yep it's congress for me and all i have to do is say NO to every bill the other party wants even if it's good for the country.
When is the Last Time you heard a Republican TeaBilly Politician talk about "Jobs and the Economy"?.
If it isn't Guns, Babies, Gay Marriage, and Gawd.............it's Space Travel.
You BetCha.....Fer Sure.
When was the last time Democrats told the truth or better yet, take responsibility for anything they have done without blaming somebody or something?
Newt - just SHUT UP and go back to your lobbyists!!!!
[Newt - just SHUT UP and go back to your lobbyists!!!!]
He can join Timmy:
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/20/us-financial-regulation-pawlenty-idINBRE88J0LL20120920
The primary reason that NASA seems so poorly funded these days is the declining military involvement in NASA. The origins of NASA are in military rocketry. In the early days of manned spacflight, ex-test pilots and ex-fighter jocks were considered the only people who had "the right stuff." The Saturn V was intended originally as a heavy-lift rocket to match Russia's lifting capability and hurl 4 MIRV 100-mt weapons at the Soviet Bloc. Both the Space Shuttle and the ISS were initially supported by the military because of their near-earth weapons, reconnaissance, anti-satellite, and command and control potential.
This military influence brought huge amounts of money from the military budget into NASA's civilian budget and also made for some mis-leading budgeting because it was difficult to tell whether, as one example, the military funding was helping with NASA's non-military overhead.
To get NASA back on track we need to quit looking at pie-in-the-sky projects such as a moon base and start seriously working on "real" and necessary basics. We need:
1) A serious heavy-lift capability that can loft a payload to the Earth-Moon LaGrange Point for the least cost per pound and the greatest possible reliability. There is simply no excuse that our heavy lift capability was put aside because the money was "needed" for the idiotic LEO Space Shuttle. The Space Shuttle was never capable of putting a peanut to the EM LaGrange Point. It couldn't even handle geosynchronous orbit. It looked great, but there was no "there" there.
2) We need a serious space station at the Earth-Moon LaGrange Point. This station would serve as a jumping off place for everything from planetary probes to visits to the moon. It would serve as an assembly platform for large space vehicles and would provide us with valuable information about the effects of weightlessness and cosmic radiation on the human body. (The ISS helps very little of this because it is within the Earth's magnetosphere and has a micro-gravity.)
3) We need a SERIOUS plan. Currently we can send sophisticated robotics to Mars, but we simply do not have sufficient knowledge or technology to send a man to Mars on anything except a suicide mission. Until we get a lot further along, a manned trip to Mars is a pipe dream. And the plan does need to include private industry, not so much because it would save NASA lots of money, but also because it spreads the risk and increases the numbers of brains being applied to prpoblems. If we want to put man on Mars or to have a permanent presence on the Moon, we need to get some serious step-by-step planning. Projects on this plan need to prioritized.
4) We need to seriously change the way that NASA is budgeted. Virtually all of NASA's new projects require major advances in science to achieve. The NASA budget process is set up so that even a slight delay in these major advances can be devastating to the project. What needs to be done is called "priority-based budgeting." In this way all projects on NASA's scientific whsh list would be put on the list in priority order. Spending would be done in priority order. Projhects too far down on the list would never receive funding because of their low priorioty. Extremely high projects would receive sufficient funding and could more easily weather the cost and time overruns that come with ground-breaking science. And the bottom line would be that NASA might not be doing everything it wanted to, but at least it would be spending its money and resources on the most important projects.
5) And we need to strip the military completely out of NASA. Put scientists in charge and retire the fighter jocks. Even the military is starting to phase out pilots as unmanned aircraft become more and more important. In the military, as with long-duration spaceflight, the limiting factor is the man himself. Take him out of the picture and lots more things become practical and probable.
why do we need to go to Mars? or any other planet for that matter, if we found a planet mad of gold or silver or some really rare metal wall street would just demand it be a private venture and just steal it any way.
AVATAR, corporate greed, sound familiar?
Obama 2012
Agree. We need more students interested in STEM and it will give us national pride again. One reason I went to engineering school was because of watching Saturn V launches on YouTube. Now, I help export products to China.
Technology and space exploration are the only things that can eliminate all poverty on earth. Space has unlimited amounts of natural resources and energy. Handing out welfare check will never reduce poverty. We do have the technology to man a mission to Mars today.
Space has no oil, food, shelter, breathable air, and very little liquid water.
I don't see how poverty could be eliminated through space exploration.
Newt is flying high for two Looney Tunes !!!!!!!!!!!!!
'Porky Pig' says, Th-th-th-th-th-that's All Folks!
Actually, I'm for space exploration. Chris 749391 has posted a very intelligent way to evolve what we've done into what we should do. It is this kind of objective, insightful thinking that we need about our entire political process. Both parties are loath to articulate these things because yes, the lobbyists rule. The "status quo" folks want it to stay that way. Before this is over, we all have to face some realities. But I'll stick with Obama because I know that the realities have to apply to all of us. The gated-community crowd sez they care for all of us, but when the dishes are cleared at the fund-raiser, the truth comes out. I'm hoping that after Mitt gets sent back to his car elevator, the GOP will take their party back from Fox News. Any chance of that happening? Please, I'm not ready to face reality yet.
Newt needs to get professional help.
Build a space ladder. That will elevate astronauts to theirs spaceships sitting in synchronized orbit with were the ladder ends 500 hundred miles up. Over time space elevators will lower the cost of space travel. This method will also be another way to ferry paying passengers into out space for excursions to the moon.
Um, actually, because of the pull of gravity on the "cables" the end of the elevator would have to be beyond the point of a satelite's geosynchronous orbit, more like a earth-moon langrange point (which, by the way, is greater than 500 miles up). My limited research thus far puts this at least 33,000 miles "up".
A geosyncronous orbit is 35,786 kilometres (22,236 miles) straight up, and a space elevator (nobody would climb a ladder that tall) would have to go out several hundred miles beyond that to counterbalance the weight of the elevator tower.
The cost of energy to ride such an elevator out to orbit is trivial, less than $60, but the cost of construction, and the amortized cost applied to ticket prices, would be astronomical (pardon the pun).
COinFL: a Space Elevator can't go to any of the earth-moon Lagrange points, because those points are always moving relative to any geosynchronous point. At best, the L2 Lagrange point might occasionally intersect the Space Elevator, but L1, L4 and L5 are in the same orbit as the Moon, and L3 is beyond the Moon. We definitely don't want the Moon colliding with the space elevator.
CM-6969 --
Okay, you are correct (I think). But I wasn't saying that it would have to end at at lagrange point, just "more like an earth moon langrange point". Meaning much farther out than 500 miles. I wish I could spend all night discussing this with you, and perhaps learn more things, but I can't. Got to go to work in the morning. Word is I'm losing my job this week. Been working for a temp agency and the construction is almost complete. Got to go now. Peace. :).
That's rich, the serial philanderer/liar lecturing the premiers of lying, breathtaking lunacy.
Obama 2012
What woukd Newt do with a hand full of worms?
When you see more and more of Mitts own party criticizing him, you know he's toast. I personally don't even think Romney will make it through the 1st debate, as he is that bad of a candidate. Living in the WH wouldn't be suitable for Ann's living standards anyway. She would probably have it imploded and have Mitt build her a new one that is up to her standards.
Yo Da Newt............How about that "Space" between your Ears...........LOL.
Newt and his big government ideas