Well....I guess Newt will say about anything http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/01/newt-in-space-ex-speaker-promises-lunar-base-on-the-moon-by-2020.php .....First he claimed that he would be the nominee.....now he claims that he's not only going to win the presidency, but that he will get a second term! Nothing like getting ahead of yourself..... This grand idea, if it had come out of Obama's State of the Union speech, would be roundly criticized by Newt as a financial boondoggle. An enormous waste of taxpayer money, given our financial situation.
What is so bad about this? JFK made big claims about going to the moon. Instead of wasting our money on the stupid space station, a moon base would have been alot better.
Are you ready to call him a god or the "One" yet? Crazy talk, huh? [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-auZ4DGMspo&feature=related"]Newsweeks Evan Thomas: Obama's 'God - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mopkn0lPzM8"]The One - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P36x8rTb3jI"]Obama Is Going To Pay For My Gas And Mortgage!!! - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHF5HfNldpw&feature=related"]Obama Stash Money Interview by Ken Rogulski. Animated with Anime Studio Pro 6 - YouTube[/ame] _
Let's say Obama had cited creating a Moon Base as one of America's goals in his State of the Union speech. What would you have said then?
LOL Beat me to it. Liberals always forget the promises their leaders make when its politically inconvenient.
Massive waste of money. We don't have the technology to maintain a long term base on the Moon and its not economically viable. We need functional all-weather LEO capability and a permanent space station at one of the LaGrange points for the construction of space-only craft that don't need to travel in atmosphere or carry the payload needed to reach orbit. Those should be our priorities in space.
..... Well, I see the 'Kill The Thread' groupie is here....but please don't ask them to answer any questions...they can only do one thing at a time. Like Gingrich has any chance of winning the nomination much less the presidency. Being married three times and being a serial adulterer, being thrown out as Speaker for ethical lapses, then feigning change of heart becomes a Catholic so he could marry his latest mistress will SURELY be enough to get him elected in the general election...oh yeah, RIGHT...
a moon base is cool and all. But such a venture would literally cost tens of billions of dollars to support and maintain. I am all for giving nasa more money, but not even they are probably interested in doing this over simply getting a man to mars...
billions and billions of dollars, untold man hours, all to put a couple of humans on the moon to do and learn absolutely NOTHING substantial or world changing? Will they be stirring economic growth by selling harvesting moon rocks or moon diamonds? Will they be finding cheaper energy alternatives from moon dust? Will they be building up national defense for the US by having moon missile bases that can launch anywhere in the world? I fail to see ANY benefit for putting a man on teh moon right now for the long term. Talk about a waste.
The Moon does have a crap ton of Platinum (enough to make a platinum grill seem like a used retainer in vaule) but we don't have the technology to operate a mining base their yet and it would be easier to do it unmanned once that technology matures. After all, machines don't need to breathe.
So again I ask, what's the point? Sure, you can argue that a mission like this advances techonology and gets us closer to where we might be able to do something useful in space (like mine asteroids, which have far more usable resources than the moon). But I personally don't think our society is in a position to even bother with actual field testing of technology. Think about how much of the tech used in the first space launch or first moon launch would actually get used today? Probably none, making most of what they did back then an exercise in futility. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have gone into space (as satellites and the like ARE critically important today), but the moon itself offers almost no redeeming value until we are truly beyond sustainable population levels, which is centuries away from happening.
This "idea" of creating a Moon Base was actually a program started in 2004 by George W. Bush called the Constellation program. It was behind schedule and costly and so Obama discontinued it in 2009 along with cutting the NASA budget in general. Gingrich is only bringing it up as an implicit knock on Obama for discontinuing it. Newt is not as much a proponent of the program as he is of just taking a political shot. I don't think this is going to have much affect as most people would not put space travel at the top of their issues lists right now....or for that matter, even have it on their list. Even when most of the conservative establishment or Republican partisans examine this, they have to admit, logically, that this is exactly the kind of "spending program" to which they regularly object.
^^^^ responce in 1490: Stupid idea. Instead of giving Columbus the money to sail, we should use it to bomb France or the English.
Money is always better spent bombing people. Your idea sounds like something a woman would do... Isabella I (Spanish: Isabel I, Ysabel, Galician: Sabela I) (22 April 1451 26 November 1504) was Queen of Castile and León. She and her husband Ferdinand II of Aragon brought stability to both kingdoms that became the basis for the unification of Spain. Later the two laid the foundations for the political unification of Spain under their grandson, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. After a struggle to claim her right to the throne, she reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and pulled the kingdom out of the enormous debt her brother had left behind. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms. Isabella and Ferdinand are known for completing the Reconquista, ordering conversion or exile of their Muslim and Jewish subjects and financing Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage that led to the opening of the "New World". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isabella_I_of_Castile
Newt is not an idiot, technically. He's a narcissistic megalomaniac. He's also not going anywhere. He knows that he can't win the repub nomination, let alone the election, but he is vain enough to enjoy the attention, even if most of it is negative. What he's really doing is padding his resume. The campaign should result in higher fees for giving speeches and lobbying and he'll probably spin a book or two out of it. The only candidate on the right that is an adult, and the country would be safe with, is Romney. I suspect that if Newt or Paul ever actually became president and started pulling the (*)(*)(*)(*) they threaten to do, the CIA would have to kill them. The real job of a president is to protect the vital interests of the US, whatever they are at the time. It's not really about jobs and economic swings, or social legislation like abortion or gay marriage, which he can't really control anyway. They are charged with taking in the big picture and ensuring that the US maintains its dominance and position in the world. It's not always pretty, but it's the reality of the job. That's why the rubes complain about the similarities among what presidents actually do once in office. In Reagan's time, the vital interests included energy supplies and the containment and weakening of the global communist movement, which he inherited. His skullduggery with Iran and the Contras, funding Osama bin Laden, his kissing Saddam's butt and all the rest were designed to do just that. Of course, actions have consequences, and politicians (*)(*)(*)(*) up all the time, but the big picture remains, and policies and actions taken by presidents must address this big picture first and foremost. That's why idiots and blowhards like Paul and Newt are non-starters. The idiots who think that they would do anything fundamentally different are naive or delusional.
Well, you can bet that he will have his own show on Fox after this..... It will likely be something similar to MTV's "Yo Momma!".......at least if it takes it's optimal form.
Ther is something evil about the eye of newt. I suspect he is into devil buisness. He just looks evil. Add the horns and the tail, and you have satin himself.
