Posted on 02/02/2012 7:23:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
WASHINGTON (AP) - Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wants to create a lunar colony that he says could become a U.S. state. There's his grand research plan to figure out what makes the human brain tick. And he's warned about electromagnetic pulse attacks leaving America without electricity.
To some people, these ideas sound like science fiction. But mostly they are not.
Several science policy experts say the former House speaker's ideas are based in mainstream science. But somehow, Gingrich manages to make them sound way out there, taking them first a small step and then a giant leap further than where other politicians have gone.
Gingrich's promise that "by the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon" got amped up in a recent debate in Florida, which lost thousands of jobs with the end of the space shuttle program. By then, the lunar base had become a colony and even a potential state, and his moon ideas were ridiculed by rival Mitt Romney.
Returning to the moon and building an outpost there is not new. Until three years ago, it was U.S. policy and billions of dollars were spent on that idea.
Staying on the moon dates at least to 1969, when a government committee recommended that NASA first build a winged, reusable space shuttle followed by a space station and then a moon outpost. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush proposed going to the moon and staying there.
Sixteen years later, in 2005, his son, President George W. Bush, proposed a similar lunar outpost, phased out the space shuttle program and spent more than $9 billion designing a return to the moon program.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Also, Neal Lane, former head of the National Science Foundation and White House science adviser during the Clinton administration, said Gingrich’s proposals aren’t crazy, although he may disagree with some of them. Gingrich’s ideas and actions are “very pro-science,” said Lane, who credited Gingrich with protecting federal science research from budget cuts in the 1990s.
“He’s on the edge of mainstream thinking about big science. Except for the idea of establishing a colony on the moon, it’s not over the edge,” added Syracuse University science policy professor Henry Lambright.
By Saul Relative | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Oct 22, 2011
There is at least one person who believes that ownership of the moon could go to China once the country's efforts to actualize a moon base are realized (planned for the 2020s) -- even though there exists an international treaty that forbids direct ownership by claim, use, or other means of the moon by any one country or organization.
However, space exploration advocate Robert Bigelow says, according to Discovery News, that China's economic strength, national direction, and proposed timeline for reaching the moon and constructing a lunar base will place the Asian nation in an optimum position to dictate moon matters and claim important mineral rights. He says the international treaty will not matter and ownership of the moon will be the first step in China's gambit to win what he calls "Solar System Monopoly."
"This will characterize the 21st and 22nd centuries and beyond. If we ignore this, it will be at our extreme peril," Bigelow told his audience at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight going on this week in Las Cruces, N.M. "Nothing else China could possibly do in the next 15 years would cause as great a benefit for China."
Bigelow believes that China's global economic influence, not to mention the technological capability and will to colonize and/or mine the moon, will provide a buffer zone of allowance. Most nations will be too poor and economically dependent to object to a Chinese land and mineral grab.
The United States, Russia, India and European nations (or the European Union) might object but have little in the planning or operational stages as competition to a Chinese lunar base. Economic problems and political policies (such as massive defundings of NASA) are seen to also work as a curb against opposition to a determined effort by the Chinese government space program to reach and setting up mining operations on the moon.
Why the worry? Bigelow believes that a territory grab will set the Chinese up for mineral rights ownership. Discovery of water on the moon last year (where NASA "bombed" the lunar surface and found water deposits) would make it possible to set up missions with longevity through permanent lunar facilities. A recent study released information that the moon also has areas where it is titanium rich.
Titanium, a rare metal on Earth, is more durable than steel, lighter, and, because of its rarity, expensive. A lunar base could possibly lead to an advantage to the operator, establishing a "claim" and subsequent mineral rights to that which can be extracted from the claimed territory.
In short, if China gets to the moon first, establishes a lunar base first (plans are in place to establish a base in the 2020s), they could set up extraction facilities that greatly benefit China and few others. Although minerals and goods manufactured in low gravity would ultimately make it to Earth market, China would dictate the supply and price with its monopoly. A space mission that results in a lunar base could also lead to manufacturing installations on the moon itself and establish for China a foothold on dominating the space race, not only with regard to the moon but also future expeditions to Mars. ..."
http://news.yahoo.com/chinese-manned-moon-massive-lunar-land-grab-215600572.html
I saw the iMax movie about the moon at Kennedy Space Center, and it ended with a little girl who had drawn pictures of the moon grown up and standing on the moon, overlooking the base. Why is this suddenly crazy talk?
There are also some excellent military tech articles about the national security repercussions if either Russia or China beat us there... I don’t much read stuff like that.. Newt also said, contrary to what’s being reported, that he would like the private sector to foot 90% of the bill, with the govt incentivizing with tax breaks, prizes, etc.
http://www.myfoxdc.com/dpps/news/russia-us-moon-base-nasa-dpgonc-20110119-to-_17194074
“Russia is talking with the US and Europe on plans to create a manned research base on the moon, the head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos said Thursday.
Roscosmos is discussing the possibilities for a permanent moon base with officials from NASA and the European Space Agency, the agency’s chief, Vladimir Popovkin said.
“We don’t want man to just step on the moon,” Popovkin told Vesti FM radio station, according to the Ria Novosti news agency. “Today, we know enough about it, we know that there is water in its polar areas ... we are now discussing how to begin [the moon’s] exploration with NASA and the European Space Agency.”
He said the plan was either to set up a base on the moon or launch a station to orbit around it.”
Russia also is planning to send two unmanned mission to the moon by 2020, Popovkin said.
China moonbase 2002:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/5/22/181737.shtml
Space Race Rekindled? Russia Shoots for Moon, Mars:
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=3550741&page=1
RE: Why is this suddenly crazy talk?
I don’t think it is crazy, I just think it isn’t the PRIORITY with people at the moment.
First, CREATE JOBS, GROW THE ECONOMY, SHRINK THE DEBT, and then We can plan for a lunar colony later.
Yeah, we’ve got this little problem called “NO MORE MONEY”.
Once the next president gets the budget under control,
strips entitlement spending, reduces taxes,
and gets the economy roaring again,
then we can talk about a “lunar base”.
That's why the United States has a total of five spacecraft orbiting the Moon at this time.
Fixed that punctuation for you...
Note that the first nation that establishes a lunar base will naturally get the prime real estate, including the He-3 deposits. It is much less far-fetched than many think that a large presence might be established in just a few years.
Newt's lunar ambitions are absolutely my favorite part of his candidacy, and I hope they rub off to a large extent on the eventual nominee. It's time for private enterprise to open up space like never before. It's going to take nuclear powered ships though...
Fixed that punctuation for you...
Note that the first nation that establishes a lunar base will naturally get the prime real estate, including the He-3 deposits. It is much less far-fetched than many think that a large presence might be established in just a few years.
Newt's lunar ambitions are absolutely my favorite part of his candidacy, and I hope they rub off to a large extent on the eventual nominee. It's time for private enterprise to open up space like never before. It's going to take nuclear powered ships though...
"I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems"
-- Barack Obama
_____________________________________________________
2008 Pentagon Report (March 2008):
China's Growing Military Space Power
By Leonard David
Special Correspondent, SPACE.com
March 6, 2008
GOLDEN, Colorado — A just-released Pentagon report spotlights a growing U.S. military concern that China is developing a multi- dimensional program to limit or prevent the use of space-based assets by its potential adversaries during times of crisis or conflict.
Furthermore, last year's successful test by China of a direct-ascent, anti-satellite (ASAT) weapon to destroy its own defunct weather satellite, the report adds, underscores that country's expansion from the land, air, and sea dimensions of the traditional battlefield into the space and cyber-space domains.
Although China's commercial space program has utility for non- military research, that capability demonstrates space launch and control know-how that have direct military application. Even the Chang'e 1 — the Chinese lunar probe now circling the Moon — is flagged in the report as showcasing China's ability "to conduct complicated space maneuvers — a capability which has broad implications for military counterspace operations."
To read the entire publication [29.67MB/pdf], see U.S. Dept of Defense:
http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pdfs/China_Military_Report_08.pdf
_____________________________________________________
From the Sino-Russian Joint Statement of April 23, 1997:
"The two sides [China and Russia] shall, in the spirit of partnership, strive to promote the multipolarization of the world and the establishment of a new international order."
“First, CREATE JOBS, GROW THE ECONOMY, SHRINK THE DEBT, and then We can plan for a lunar colony later.”
...after the Chinese have taken the prime real estate...
I believe a strong push into space and to a lunar colony could be a huge boost to the economy if done correctly. The spinoffs alone would be staggering.
Asteroid 1986 DA, just to pick one, contains over 10,000 tons of gold and 100,000 tons of platinum. All of the metals in that body, if delivered in 2010, would have had a value of over $25 trillion. The Moon could contain strikes of similar value. Why has nobody sought this profit?
Nobody is looking at the legal blockade to extraterrestrial profits, because they don't even know that they exist. The Johnson administration managed to apply principals of socialism to anything outside of the earth:
"The exploration and use of outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and shall be the province of all mankind." Article I of The Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies of 1967.
Ferdinand and Isabella gave Columbus a few sheckles, but it took quite some time before finance evolved enough to put together profit making ventures that yielded boatloads of gold. It is time for us to free space from socialism and allow the cornerston to free enterprise - private property.
I do not favor any large government expenditures for Solyndra on the Moon. I just wish that when the debate tries to revive the excitement of Apollo, that SOMEBODY would say the Outer Space Treaty makes for profit investment IMPOSSIBLE.
Withdraw from the Treaty.
Because people are ignorant and the media and mittwitts saw it as an opportunity to mock Newt.
Because people are ignorant and the media and mittwitts saw it as an opportunity to mock Newt.
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