Romney Dumps on Gingrich Space Vision
Romney Mocks Gingrich’s Plans For Moon Base, CBS
“Gingrich promised that “By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American.” Gingrich, the former House speaker, told an overflowing crowd gathered on Florida’s space coast Wednesday that he wants to develop a robust commercial space industry in line with the airline boom of the 1930s. He also wants to expand exploration of Mars.”
Gingrich jab at debate moderator deflected, Reuters
“One of Romney’s biggest applause lines was saying that Gingrich has a pattern of pandering to local audiences – promising a new Veterans Administration hospital in New Hampshire a few weeks ago and a moon colony on Wednesday when he visited Florida’s Space Coast. “I spent 25 years in business,” Romney said. “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 is being incredibly disingenuous on this subject. While he (Gingrich) may be talking this to the voters in Florida, he has always had this close to his core interests. If people who are space supporters from any stripe belittle Gingrich for this heartfelt interest it will not be good for space. You can not like the person but like the policy, even if it is the only one you agree with.
We absolutely can be space supporters and belittle Gingrich for his supposed interest. Gingrich is just as disingenuous as anyone else. Gingrich and Romney are on the same level.
Gingrich has been on this since his election to congress in 1978 as one of the founders of the congressional space caucus.
That absolutely does not prove that he is not posturing with his latest pronouncements. He is, after all, running for his party’s presidential nomination. The ONLY proof that will exist to prove he isn’t posturing is his actions if he wins the presidency. It’s not a science argument. There is nothing that can be argued that objectively proves Gingrich will do what he claims. You can review the history of politics and politicians to see how often politicians do reverse themselves.
Exactly. Why I was less than impressed with the way Gingrich “communicated” his approach. It was more consistent with posturing. Actually, it was like the way Romney “adjusts” his positions to audiences he “needs”.
Having heard Gingrich in the past many, many times, I expected better. I have no idea why he’s finding it difficult to articulate something he’s done better at in the past. This is what he should be best at being consistent on.
Romney is similarly peculiar. He seems to hold positions that are inconsistent with his own stated positions. In going on attack with Gingrich, he further complicates things with the backing of Griffin, whose lunar ambitions would seem to get him “fired”.
I’ll hazard a guess here. Both Gingrich and Romney are so focused on taking each other out … that its hard for them to communicate to voters while keeping an eye on attacks from their respective rival selves.
How can anyone understand what both of them stand for given this.
I agree! Newt has always talked about prizes for space. He is a big space supporter. Dr. Robert Zubrin mentioned him in his book, “The Case for Mars,” Which was written in 1996.
People in the space community have been wishing, and praying and hoping for a president who has vision on space. We finally get somebody (Albeit not the most perfect candidate, but who is?) in a political nomination process for president who has way more interest in the subject than each president since Kennedy! And all people can do is call it a “Way out there” idea, a stupid idea, or not realistic! Was the moon in 8 years back in 1961 “way out there? Was it thought stupid by many, if not most politicians? Was it realistic? Most in that time would say no.
Our current choices in regards to space policy are:Obama: Status Quo- minimal commercial funding. Its the right step, but he won’t fight for it.Romney: He would do yet another study/commission and let them decide, taking the burden off him. He doesn’t care.Paul: No space, except for military follow ups.Santorum: Unknown, but probably just the status quo at best.Gingrich: Vision of a base on the moon WITHIN HIS TERMS as president, which nobody has offered since Kennedy. More commercial funding, and Prizes.Based on that alone, the choice is clear. Nobody is saying give NASA more money than we can afford. Gingrich is saying, just do it! I believe If he were president, he would back up NASA in congress and support it. He knows it would pay for itself with Jobs, and economic progress, just like Apollo did. Only this time with commercial going along, it would stay! Even if we got a quarter of what he promised, it would still be better than what we are currently going to be getting by around 2021.I guess what I’m saying is that if you care about where space exploration and development is going, sometimes beggars can’t be choosers.
You’re absolutely right Dennis. One can be critical of a policy but also respectful of the issue being continually raised.
Again, I laud Gingrich for raising space as an issue even as I critique the specifics of how/why he does so, so that it is better for America. It’s an important area that gets short shrift.
And I condemn Romney for his facetiousness on the subject. If he’s going to take on Gingrich, he’d better do so in a genuine way with a better policy for America. He is simply insulting.
America needs better.
In fact, Romney already attacked Newt on this long before Florida came up. To act like it’s just suddenly become an issue when they moved to F-town is gibberish.
“Romney said. “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.'”
Mind you, Romney would say that if you came to him with any plan. He made his money as a corporate raider, they play a negative sum game.
“Romney’s biggest applause lines was […] a moon colony on Wednesday when he visited Florida’s Space Coast.”
Implying that Gingrich has never held an opinion on the subject before the Florida campaign. Which Romney knows is not true. So he lied. Openly. About something that anyone could check. The fact that Romney got any applause, rather than booed off the stage, tells you more about the audience than about Gingrich.
Romney actually supported a more expensive Moon program called “Constellation”. So now he’s suddenly anti going to the Moon: another flip-flop for Romney!
Marcel F. Williams
Which gets to my concerns that none of them are nearly as committed as they may appear to be. Too easy to take back.
Look, we can all argue about specifics of plan, percentage/rationale for national security/industrial policy/future growth … but if we are going to have a functioning HSF exploration program, it must be consistently funded with consistent support with achievable goals.
Space supporters should agree on the whole to those broad brush outlines and expect candidates to play fair with that. Forget the finer grain stuff for the moment – it doesn’t matter if you can’t get this as a basis for the candidates to sell their plans on.
Neither are affordable plans unless a president can convince Romney and his ilk to pay more taxes … LOL
Space exploration advocates need to take a step back and see the whole picture. It wasn’t just Romney’s response that held the spotlight. Gingrich’s remarks and the idea of a Moon base are being mocked broadly on many venues. The bottom line is that until the country recovers and the economy is not the #1 national concern (it usually is), space exploration, especially of the human variety, will be viewed as a sideshow. Definitely a “nice to have,” but not critical to the national well-being.
The problem is that for the last 40 years we have been taking steps backward. Even if there were practically unlimited funds available for a permanent manned base on the Moon, there is probably no way it will be established by 2020, given the time required to design, develop and cut chips, and then test equipment for desired reliability.
Having said that, Gingrich’s statement at least points to a definitive GOAL, something the past few administrations, and especially the present one has NOT done. (A vague reference to exploring a NEO asteroid and someday Mars, is NOT a definite goal!) There is no question that commercial developers must come up ASAP. (GO, SpaceX, et al!) But governments will always have to be at the tip of the spear. The Moon is doable in the medium- near term, but to do anything, one must set an objective. Part of the problem is that the public doesn’t see the benefits. (Who among the general public reads the NASA spin-off web site?)
Ad LEO! Ad LUNA! Ad Ares! Ad Astra!
Even if there were practically unlimited funds available for a permanent manned base on the Moon, there is probably no way it will be established by 2020,
There are ways to make it happen, without hundreds of billions of dollars, and by 2020.
That is the POINT of prizes.
And the point is that space is the KEY to fixing that economy, for the long haul.
That is the point that the pundits are missing, and it seems most supposed space advocates. I met Gretta Sundstrand today at BWI and asked her to say something good about Newt’s space idea. Have no idea if she will but damn at least I asked.
Greta Van Susteren? As in Fox News. I believe current Fox News talking points are against Newt. There’s concern amongst Ailes & co that Newt’s not singing from the right songbook.
Both Romney and Santorum have ridiculed Gingrich’s idea without noting that Obama plans to continue to spend ca. $18 billion per year on NASA with no objective or goal. Moreover, they themselves have articulated no ideas about space, other than to deride it as “unaffordable.” Does that mean that they would dismantle NASA? If not, what do they propose that NASA do? And what level of spending is “affordable” and to accomplish what?
“Obama plans to continue to spend ca. $18 billion per year on NASA with no objective or goal“
Paul,
I’m somewhat surprised to see you jumping on this bandwagon; you’re much better informed than that.
First, what Obama proposed did not make it through the small minds of Congress. It’s a miracle that the amount allocated remained as large as it did, but how it’s to be spent was not Obama’s decision. His proposal made a lot of sense, but Congress lobotomized it.
Second, several people before you claimed that Obama had no space plan. But the simple reality was that his plan wasn’t what they wanted, and the concept of R&D is not one they want to hear, so they blindly claimed that he has no plan.
Either way, with all due respect, I don’t understand how someone with your background, knowledge and resources could make this statement.
Steve
perhaps Paul is blinded by his passion! and his passion is all things Lunar.But passion can blind you, after all the flexible path is the administrations goal and Paul knows this well, but its flexible path that stands a chance of human remotely operated Lunar ISRU experiments from a flexible path mission.
As for the Lunar outpost if you want one then the Obama policy of extending the ISS agreement into deep space just might find us the money for a lunar lander for humans………………………….
But the Gingrich that stole Christmas wants to take 10% of NASA’s budget for prizes………………
I would ADD 10% to the NASA budget and have prizes combined with space act agreements, this could mean four or more commercial crew with a fly off and the prize winner is the first party to fly two commercial crew missions in a month.
replace the technology precursor missions with space act/prize agreements
replace the robotic precursor missions with space act/prize system, this would be a commercial craft say prospecting with a paid government science payload and selling data!
“I would ADD 10% to the NASA budget and have prizes combined with space act agreements […] replace the robotic precursor missions with space act/prize system […]”
Which gets us back to the idea of a space-DARPA. A separate funding body, free of FAR limitations and internal NASA-centre power games, to steer the development of novel space tech.
The level of intelligence about space policy as spoken by the candidates in last night’s debate was appalling. What a race to the bottom.
One thing we should all agree on, is that the US and the international space community as a whole, need more options for LEO. Russia’s latest Soyuz crisis is leaving US and it’s ISS partners stranded again with no reliable manned craft. I’m all for big vision long term strategies, but until NASA and ESA develop dependable and cost-effective ways to get astronauts to LEO routinely (capability of a launch somewhere from earth to LEO and back every couple of weeks) the next steps of extended moon/mars manned exploration and possible colonization are not going to happen. Certainly not within the time-frame that Newt is talking about. I like the analogy of thinking of commercial space-flight in the near-term as we thought of commercial air travel in the ’30’s.
SpaceHoosier,
A very logical comment. I agree completely. I continue to be amazed at the number of space advocates who don’t see this (what I call the “just do it” crowd). Until we have reliable, quick turn-around flight to/from LEO capability, not only is the cost going to remain too high, but we are inviting accidents in which more people will be killed. And it’s completely unnecessary. As much as LEO is old hat, we still need to do it better before moving on with HSF.
Steve
Space policy is being mocked because of projects like JWST, Constellation, and SLS. The public sees NASA as the only game in town. Companies like ULA and Aerojet are relegated to 8.4 meter burnt orange cores with ATK RSRMs on the side.
Because NASA bureaucrats say so.
Mr. Romney will allow SLS to fail, be blown up, and reincarnated to allow NASA to continue doing nothing.
Respectfully,
Andrew Gasser
TEA Party in Space
Because of my interest in human Space flight/settlement/exploration I have never commented on JWST. I love telescopes but the money amazes me.
I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but… I figure at this point that any candidate can propose just about anything and get away with it (except from his opponents) because what a President proposes for NASA is irrelevant. In the long run, only what’s left after any proposal goes through the Congressional shredder matters. And a President can’t really be held responsible for not delivering when it’s Congress that disallows just about anything a President proposes. Of course, some people insist on blaming the President for the actions of Congress, which simply means they’re not paying attention. So, Gingrich, or any other candidate, simply has to stay within the limits of what people believe is technically possible while on the campaign trail.
Steve
Excellent point. It’s pretty much impossible for a president to do anything without a willing Congress. In fact, we’ve seen that very scenario play out through several administrations in the last 20+ years. It’s easy to blame the figurehead, but the 535 members of Congress bear a large portion of the responsibility for action or inaction. Likewise, the public bears responsibility, too. The current state of NASA didn’t spring into existence in a vacuum. The public watched it happen. We should remember that when we point fingers at a single person and say, “He’s to blame” or “She’s to blame.” Such accusations are incorrect and intellectually myopic, if not lazy.
PsiSquared,
Well said. I guess it’s easy to point a finger at one President, but how do you point 535 fingers?
Steve
It’s a different finger.
Excellent Paul!
You’ve made my day.
Steve
Steve at the beginning of the first Gingrich thread I failed to say that I felt that game would always be promise more than you know congress will fund. Very safe way to buy votes 🙁
Again I’m left looking to little Spacex
My usual cop out Elon is the critical path to mars or anywhere.
Elon takes on china
DTARS,
I’m with you on placing hopes in SpaceX, but… if they are the only ones to succeed in their efforts, then I believe we still lose. Without NASA doing reasonable things, SpaceX (and the other aerospace contenders) will not have the support, and more importantly the market, to stay in business. I salute all those who are forging ahead with space tourism and communications satellite systems, but they are nowhere near enough. Space tourism is still in its infancy (and may never leave it), so there is no market for launch services or spacecraft there in the foreseeable future (I’d really love to be wrong about that). And the communications satellite business, which has be growing in leaps and bounds, has now pretty much leveled off. Most of the communications satellites being launched now are replacements for dead ones, had there is nowhere near the expansion that we had in the past.
So what does that leave? Basically, science and military launches, which means NASA, DOD and the export market (which is shrinking). I can’t give you any numbers, but my gut feeling is that if NASA continues on its current path, most of the aerospace companies in North America will disappear before too much longer. I think it’s like the railroad story; without government participation it will never come to be, and if the government pulls out of the marketplace (as they largely did with the railways), then it will all collapse — too much supply and too little demand. So, like it or not, we’re still going to need NASA (doing sane things), and government money, for a long time yet. I think that those who have said otherwise and believe that the commercial space age is right around the corner are engaged in wishful thinking. The need is there, but not yet the means.
At least, that’d how I see it.
Steve
No you’re not a broken record. And I agree with your basic premise from earlier posts of needing to have more “bottom up” from the people and less “top down” from incapable presidents (all) and self dealing Congress.
And, my chief issue with Gingrich is his manner of communicating a vision isn’t the wisest choice for furthering agendas but instead making himself an easy target – not that Romney’s attack is in any way justified by Newt’s action.
For people to become more engaged with HSF policy they need to have options, well communicated, with a why. With Gingrich at best he’s caught up in the inspirational – part of the story but not all.
With Romney its a “put down”, where he’s trying to do a version of “The Apprentice” to score on Gingrich, then after vetoing a lunar exploration he agreed to he does a facetious SLS appeal. If anybody in Florida thinks he’s remotely interested in HSF, they are more desperate than I’d thought.
So what I’m trying to help with, is how you engage your point better of getting people involved with HSF.
Congress thinks people are dumb, and NASA cynically means a big, expensive rocket that is flown 5-6 times in a decade, and a good one is a big one. They are letting the Shuttle primes “drive” decisions to preserve past.
National security interested people think that intimidation is the key issue, so they have a similar but not identical take on this – thinking more of the weapons systems derivations angle which SLS is not ideal for, for many peculiar reasons.
Industry focused people are interested on driving more activity into existing launch vehicles / services / derivations for immediate advantage.
Futurists want immediacy such that they can “change the frame of reference” so as to make changes in the way things work so we might have a better future outcome. Things like prop depots and ISRU come to mind here.
Leadership connects the dots and why. That’s why people listen to them.
“For people to become more engaged with HSF policy they need to have options, well communicated, with a why.“
no one of consequence,
What you say sounds reasonable to me, but when I run the possibilities I can think of through a process of elimination, I end up with a mighty short list of options that might be clearly communicated to the people and the politicians that they haven’t already rejected. In fact, in all seriousness, current events lead me to believe that nothing short of ET or a Sputnik-type event could turn things around for the space program. It’s a sad state of affairs when it looks like only a threat or a perceived threat could kick-start a sane space program, and at that, it would have the wrong focus.
If neither the majority of the people nor the majority of the politicians can recognize the need for and the opportunity in pursing non-military space projects, including HSF, I almost have to wonder if the majority is right and we have it wrong — almost.
I’m of the opinion that people (in North America, at least) have been presented with options over the last few decades, including the why, and although they could have been better and more-widely explained, I think they’ve been well-enough explained for anybody who cares to listen, but apparently, the majority simply don’t care to listen (I guess it must interfere with their television time).
So, as much as I enjoy the discussion, it seems we’re right back where we started. Unless someone can suggest some reasonable options (not the same old stuff), and propose a realistic way to get political representation for those options, I think we’re at a standstill. And I think the political representation will be the hard part because, with the statements that the new candidates have made so far, all that they’ve accomplished is to show how small-minded grown men can be.
I find myself growing ever more interested in NASA’s science missions; they’re pretty much all we have left.
Steve
Unless someone can suggest some reasonable options (not the same old
stuff), and propose a realistic way to get political representation for
those options, I think we’re at a standstill. And I think the political
representation will be the hard part because, with the statements that
the new candidates have made so far, all that they’ve accomplished is to
show how small-minded grown men can be.
All my life this has been the main issue, and its been a bit modulated by better/worse over time.
Even during Apollo/Saturn, my fears were of “overdoing it” because it was clear that public support was like a pie crust – easy to punch through. While I could understand the “need for speed” and a definitive “win”, the clear knowledge that there would be a “snap back” made me fear that we might wipe out too much of the positives of the win.
While working with Shuttle development, would continually get these on a daily basis. There was this empty feeling that the victory wasn’t translating quite right. But there was this push to make it work even as you knew where the problems would come from.
Saturn and Shuttle were the great triumphs of the arsenal system – the cold war was a battle of two arsenal systems. In retrospect it was too hard to compete “full bore” while “holding back” to not win so fast that you screwed yourself longer term.
To not be small minded we need to sense the moment in time as a people. Where the issue is with the ones on the right, they don’t want to think but compel through fear a panic result which means often the message gets lost in translation – it’s also easily manipulated by the arsenal system. The lefties communal-ism fails with too large and ambiguous a message such that it meanders and takes the long way round the barn to not get somewhere.
The best for space is genuine bipartisanship (not joint cronyism like the outcome of CxP/SLS) where they keep each other honest (mostly). We don’t have this because of divided government means they can only come together for joint cronyism – political theories each work from are too skewed.
This goes to the heart of your lament. It is due to history – as perhaps would be a worthy discussion Newt could have give his background.
Unless someone can suggest some reasonable options (not the same old
stuff), and propose a realistic way to get political representation for
those options, I think we’re at a standstill. And I think the political
representation will be the hard part because, with the statements that
the new candidates have made so far, all that they’ve accomplished is to
show how small-minded grown men can be.
All my life this has been the main issue, and its been a bit modulated by better/worse over time.
Even during Apollo/Saturn, my fears were of “overdoing it” because it was clear that public support was like a pie crust – easy to punch through. While I could understand the “need for speed” and a definitive “win”, the clear knowledge that there would be a “snap back” made me fear that we might wipe out too much of the positives of the win.
While working with Shuttle development, would continually get these on a daily basis. There was this empty feeling that the victory wasn’t translating quite right. But there was this push to make it work even as you knew where the problems would come from.
Saturn and Shuttle were the great triumphs of the arsenal system – the cold war was a battle of two arsenal systems. In retrospect it was too hard to compete “full bore” while “holding back” to not win so fast that you screwed yourself longer term.
To not be small minded we need to sense the moment in time as a people. Where the issue is with the ones on the right, they don’t want to think but compel through fear a panic result which means often the message gets lost in translation – it’s also easily manipulated by the arsenal system. The lefties communal-ism fails with too large and ambiguous a message such that it meanders and takes the long way round the barn to not get somewhere.
The best for space is genuine bipartisanship (not joint cronyism like the outcome of CxP/SLS) where they keep each other honest (mostly). We don’t have this because of divided government means they can only come together for joint cronyism – political theories each work from are too skewed.
This goes to the heart of your lament. It is due to history – as perhaps would be a worthy discussion Newt could have give his background.
NOoC,
As usual, what you says makes sense to me. But it doesn’t offer a lot of hope. I think we can summarize the current space program situation as: we are mostly doing the wrong things; and the few right things that we’re doing we are doing for the wrong reasons.
As long as I’m in a dead end frame of mind about all this, let me move on to the next item that’s been bugging me. The run-up events to November’s election haven’t been going on for too long, but long enough, I think, to get a reasonable feel for the opinions and probable actions of the candidates.
So far, there has been one huge hole in all the rhetoric, one important topic that has been completely ignored by all of the candidates (and all of those who I have read/heard comment on the candidates) — not one of them has said a word about the future of the International Space Station. It’s the one asset that NASA has that is, for all intents and purposes, complete and fully usable. Everything else discussed or proposed is for new stuff to be available (in theory) at some indefinite time in the future. The ISS exists now; its building has been paid for (dearly); there is so much potential sitting there in the sky just waiting for people with the brains to use it properly — as a science and engineering asset, not a political symbol. And yet, already bloggers have been talking about killing the ISS in order to use its operating budget to build their own pet projects.
This time around, not even Gingrich has so much as mentioned it (maybe he’s planning to kill it to get his prize money). And there is almost no mention (and nothing intelligent) by any of the candidates about the US regaining the ability to fly people into space, ISS, LEO, BEO, or anywhere. So it wouldn’t really matter if we had Gingrich’s pie in the sky or Romney’s nothing at all — because we don’t and won’t have any way to get there! (and please, don’t anybody argue SLS, because I won’t even respond).
The bottom line? As I see it, not one of them, or their advisors, appears to have given this enough thought to have a coherent plan. Each candidate is obviously just offering whatever he thinks people want to hear, wherever he happens to be. In other words, business as usual. It used to be that we evaluated and voted for a party platform, not simply for (or against) a candidate, but I guess those days are gone. That said, if we were to evaluate the Presidential choices in terms of their ability and willingness to face the hard facts and say, “that’s the way it is,” then I guess Mr. Obama is currently ahead on points in my mind.
I guess nothing really changes.
Steve
Hey, it worked for Obama! (well at least until the blowback caused him to reinvent his position, which he immediately abandoned after the election).
Newt has had some interesting ideas about human spaceflight in the past. Unfortunately, he really did not push them as Speaker. Now with his latest proposal, he has gone over board and made human spaceflight the joke of late night comedians and TV pundits. He probably set back plans several years as no one is going to bring up a vision of a lunar base or manufacturing to Congress anytime soon.
And we need to pick our candidates not just on their space program positions. I want someone who is cool, smart and sane when deciding to to take out a Bin Ladin.
After all, both President Bushes had great space proposals and did nothing to make them a reality.
In fact, if memory serves me correctly, President George W. Bush, not Barack Obama was the one to kill off the Shuttle program.
Yes, Newt certainly didn’t lend any credibility to space exploration with his grandiose promise and plans, especially the bit about the 51st state possibly being on the Moon.
Please provide specific reasons why the economic and cultural development of the space frontier, beginning on the moon lacks credibility.
It’s patently obvious that there is little credibility to be gained or had by stating that a moon colony could become the 51st state. There are agreements in place that prevent that. Further, Gingrich offered not a bit of explanation of how he would pay for as much. As stated above, the president is one person, and that person hardly has the power to promise that he will, of his own accord, ensure that a plan such as Gingrich’s happens. Even Kennedy couldn’t do that. Kennedy got lucky because Congress went along with it. Gingrich, if he becomes president, has to ensure that all of Congress passes as much. Given the dysfunctional Congress we have now, there is zero reason to believe that will change in the near future. You can bet on the promises of Gingrich if you like, but I don’t see any of his claims being anything worth betting on. You don’t, after all, have objective proof that Gingrich’s plan will come to fruition. And you certainly have no idea how other nations on Earth will respond to anyone claiming statehood for part of the Moon.
he really did not push them as Speaker.
He met with and supported pro space in the Zero G Zero tax legislation in the 1990’s.
Mr. Consequence
In the Gingrich update thread I left you a suggestion/ challenge you may find interesting.
DTARS
Gingrich’s idea is not unlike Obama’s original proposal when he cancelled Constellation, get NASA back into R&D to advance the state-of-the-art while incentivizing commercial access to LEO. Like Obama’s proposal, Gingrich’s would be DOA in the Senate because only the government can do human spaceflight according to them. The only real difference in Gingrich’s plan and Obama’s is the ridiculously unrealistic goal of a colony on the Moon in 8 years. Ever since Kennedy, everybody wants to have some unreachable goal as a target. Why can’t we develop technology to make access to LEO as routine as an airline? Any other destination in the solar system would then be easily attainable. Anyway, all these political promises by both Republicans and Democrats are meaningless until we get a new space agency. NASA is too incompetent to implement anybody’s plan. Until we fix that, we’re hosed.
“Gingrich’s idea is not unlike Obama’s original proposal […] get NASA back into R&D to advance the state-of-the-art while incentivizing commercial access to LEO.”
Actually, they’re kind of opposite. Gingrich seems to want to pushing R&D onto the commercial players via the prizes.
“Ever since Kennedy, everybody wants to have some unreachable goal as a target.”
The Great Vision. Promise something and NASA will magically become capable, primes will become cheap, Congress will throw money at us and the public will finally be… Interested. It does my head in every time. (That and Helium-3 mining.)
Paul,
I’m afraid you’re absolutely right. Gingrich started out in the right direction (in my mind) by basically saying, (paraphrasing) let’s not just keep farting around with the same decades old technology; let’s support the development of new and better ways. But then he completely blew it by basically trying to predict the future when he laid out specific future discoveries and hung dates on them. But at least he has some ideas. Romney seems to see virtue in saying, I’m not going to tell you what I’m going to do. The reason, of course, is because he hasn’t got a clue and doesn’t really care.
Thankfully, Americans have lots of other issue on which to decide how to vote. If you had to rely on space issues, you might as well just toss a coin.
Steve
Well Steve
I feel for newt on trying to predict the future.
Lol Parallel Lines lol
Newt’s plan for a lunar base is grand and is where we should have been about 25 years ago.
I agree about the money though. I shudder to think of the mountain of newly borrowed cash from China and whomever to make this happen.
On the other hand, such a project would generate a lot of jobs and help put the US back on top in the area of Human space exploration.
The amount technology developed from such a project would be fantastic too.
So as always, we’ll have to see how things shake out.
Where do you see Gingrich claiming that it is going to take a lot of money? If you took 10% of the 17 billion dollar NASA budget, per year and put them in prizes we would be on the Moon in force in less than ten years at a cost of $17 billion that was already going to be spent.
I tend to agree with you on this. I like the idea of x prizes.
Wouldn’t Hawaii be the best place for the USA to build a rail launcher that could get fuel to Leo for the cheapest price???
Couldn’t you push a fuel tanker off the top of that mountain at a 45 degree angle to use jets rockets and wings for a recoverable fly back first stage that could air launch a x-37 tank that took fuel to a cheap LEO fuel depot ???
Make the launcher a rail cheap!
Human vehicles could use more wing and jets since they would have to leave the mountain at lower velocity for safe acceleration.
Maybe a professor could have his students design such a rail and have students design recoverable rockets that use it. They could get in touch with Hawaii which could get them Interested in the idea.
A while back I was told by others here how hard it is to have an ISS astronaut jump in an orbital Vehicle. They were right I had never thought that NASA didn’t even have the capability to have a few astronaut jump in spaceship, punch up the computer and go do something !
I need to read your ideas more.
The more I learn the more I realize how far we have to go.
DTARS
Hawaii provides highway to the stars to fuel the expanding Space ecomny
Parallel lines
I’m sure that wouldn’t sit well with telescope crowd. Tough! Lol
An electro magnetic monorail with a runway at the base of the mountain wouldn’t be that hard to do or all that expensive!
Obama and congress want shovel ready jobs!
Google “atomic cannon” or “nuclear verne gun”.
Now that’s what I’m talken about ! Lol
“I’m not going to come here today and tell you precisely what the mission will be. I’m going to tell you who I’m going to give it to.” In other words, he’s going pork it; make sure some nonsense runs so that money is funneled to certain states.
The you convince the stakeholders in the US budget that the millions gifted in prizes are much more valuable than their given priorities. Oh, wait: you need to be a politician to do that. Gingrich has done neither. He has made one highly questionable claim. Again, neither a president nor a party presidential candidate can promise to deliver on such things, unless somehow they’ve found the secret key that unlocks the ability to control how the members of Congress vote and more importantly, how the members Congress respond to both their constituents, their campaign donors, and the lobbyists. Gingrich certainly has not done that, nor has anyone else that I’m aware of. Kennedy got a bit lucky. He also had charisma that Gingrich certainly does not have.
I support a candidate who can dream bigger than any other candidate! Newt is spot on with his desire to return to the Moon and move on to Mars. He knows that we can do it! We have the technology, and the talent, all we need now is a leader to make it happen.