Posted on 02/07/2012 5:37:14 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
[BIG snip]
Santorum's ad and his Op-Ed, meant to mock Gingrich, in reality can only distinctly not help Santorum's struggling campaign. Gingrich will surely make the inevitable -- and correct -- connection between Santorum's ad and a serious attack on the Reagan space legacy -- and the dreams of America itself. "We'll continue our quest in space…. Nothing ends here; our hopes and our journeys continue," said President Reagan that tragic January night. Well, no they won't. Not if Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney have anything to say about it. "I promise," says Santorum.
Worse, whether Santorum's staff understands it or not the mocking Santorum ad and Op-Ed is an insult to the memory of seven extraordinarily brave Americans who 26 years ago this past January 28th gave their lives to continue the American journey into space. A journey, as Ronald Reagan well knew, into the future that America has always been, and will always be, about.
Former NASA executive Charles Miller, in a recent Wall Street Journal article, not only praised Gingrich's vision he outlined ways to return to space while well acknowledging the nation's current financial problems. In short, Mr. Miller, like Gingrich, embraced not only Reagan's vision but used another quality of Reagan's -- imagination -- to answer the unimaginative negativity that is now surprisingly advocated by Santorum and Romney.
....Stop, Senator. Stop.
If you really wish to sit at the Resolute desk, a literal, physical reminder of the human dream of exploration -- be resolute. Show some imagination. Vision. Don't play Herbert Hoover.
The City on a Shining Hill is the place to reach for the stars.
Not a place to be mocked by a radio commercial or a dopey Op-Ed that signals a crabbed, timid, fainthearted, decidedly un-conservative and un-American state of mind.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Newt has not “demonized profits,” and in fact if you had actually read his proposal, you would know that there’s plenty of profit in it for private companies. The moon will not only eventually provide a station for further space exploration, but has a lot of mineral wealth of its own, particularly rare minerals, and also provides a gravity-free environment that has all sorts of uses, ranging from manufacturing to (yes) therapeutic.
The function of NASA in Newt’s plan would be administrative, and NASA would be responsible for coordinating plans, running bidding, making sure regulatory measures don’t put a stop to the whole thing, etc. And of course, keeping the Chinese at bay.
An environment funded by government, no? Or are we challenging the private sector to take up space exploration?
I agree. Rush and Hannity started in on the “anti-capitalist” garbage, and people just fell into line, parroting it like it actually made sense. It didn’t. I will never forget Hannity’s interview with Perry, in which Hannity pounded him on that false issue in the most rude, ugly way you can imagine. After that night, I was completely done with the little twerp.
Gallup's latest national polling has Gingrich at 24% and Santorum at 16%.
Santorum is leading in the Great Lakes / Midwest region, the key battleground area for November.
One of the flaws in the corn ethanol idea was that it could not be piped and so it had to be trucked to the gas stations because of it's high water content, which gasoline is relatively free from. Well having to truck ethanol pretty much wiped out any net energy that the corn might have produced as an energy source making us MORE dependent on oil not less.
Well trucking ‘rare minerals’ from the moon to the earth is going to be a bit more expensive than trucking ethanol to the pumps, like a million times+ or more, slowing down the recuping of that $500B/$1T or so from all those ‘profits’
Newt is a idea guy for sure, unfortunately many of them are fun sounding clunkers. Ethanol was a huge disaster but all it took was selling it to a few gullable voters to make us slaves to it.
I have not seen the ad but I’m guessing it’s not a good one, even though overall I prefer Santorum to newt.
But newt made a mistake with his heavy handed way of bringing this up, suddenly, in FL. It looked like pandering. And the timing is wrong. He should have explained the issue better, as a geopolitical strategy, either early on in the debates, or later as the nominee or even in a state of the union or its own presser as President. People are hurting and they want relief from obamamanomics.
The way he brought it us deserved the ridicule it got on SNL. It probably didn’t deserve a mocking ad, which sounds like it hurts Santorum, but most of the country saw it as boondoggle spending that doesn’t fit in with their goals of survival right now.
Besides being damn exciting and bringing about new technologies, moon and space exploration is an important strategy for our survival, but I don’t think the Floridians nor the other American people got that out of his asking for it like a stairway to heaven.
I completely agree. Mars exploration and moon bases are fine visions, but until we're on more solid financial footing, they need to stay on the back burner.
How about we "explore" taking back our national refuges and parks from the Mexican drug cartels and building a REAL border wall? Those are goals worth pursuing.
silly SOL, once we allocate a grant for the flux capacitor, the moon garbage fuel will easily pay for the rare *earth* stuff to be brought home...
“Most of the technology we enjoy and take for granted has been developed largely as a result of man’s quest to reach into space.”
This is complete nonsense. Actually, it is the other way around: a healthy consumer economy is what allows the space program to run. Radio was not a result of the space program, but was developed mostly largely for consumer use. It spilled over then into military and space applications.
The number of actual inventions coming out of the space program is very small. I seem to remember that Tang® was developed for astronauts. Big deal! (Is Tang® even still on the market?)
Much of the space program is useless, to the point that they are left looking for users for things like the space station, and any high-school student can design an “experiment” to be run in weightless conditions. It is because it is really mostly unnecessary.
All I ask is to be realistic: manned space exploration is the most expensive and dangerous way to go, and yields poor results. Automated robots are better. Example: the moon program, which was cut short once the novelty wore off, but before they really got down to doing serious research.
Probably the most useful thing to come out of the space program is GPS and other communications technology. Note that people in space were not really necessary for all that! Nor would it work better from the moon!
The whole space program is racked with politics. Remember when we gave an aged senator from Ohio a ride to the space station? It was a political payoff, with the feeble excuse that inclusiveness required that an old guy be sent to the space station — for what? Next they will want handicapped parking in orbit?
We have real problems on earth, including defending ourselves from real enemies. Fancy space tricks will not impress our enemies. They are not at all bothered to watch us waste resources.
The space program needs reform, and a reasonable aim, based on a chance to get real knowledge. It is not a geek substitute for sports: it should be a serious business.
Another issue is that the space program is propaganda for socialism. It parades as something the government has done. Of course, the government provided the tax money (from the public), and gave rough directions, but all this could have been done privately, were there any demand. Statists attach the allure of exploration to the whole space enterprise, and then announce that if we can get to the moon, we can [fill in the blank] do whatever the latest government initiative is. Hubert Humphrey even said that since we had proven our ability in getting to the moon, we have the ability to banish disease and death from the earth. This shows how extreme is the fantasy of such thinking.
Good idea,
I am waiting for the proposal to build a Star Ship with Warp Drive that runs on all those plastic food shopping bags that have been piling up the past 10 years.
In fact we can probably 'beam' the rare metals back to earth for a fraction of the cost using the ships 'transporter' , We just need to get private companies to invest their money in a ‘transporter’. Why wasnt this thought of sooner?
I didn't say that NASA did not have the records or plans for an updated Saturn V. They are on microfilm at Marshall Space Center...the problem is that NASA can no longer have the required parts manufactured and it has forgotten how to put them all together.
And since Werner von Braun made the conscious decision to subcontract all the work out to save time, and those sub contractors are now long out of business, there's nobody around who can actually build a new version of the Saturn V.
Saturn V Got Us To the Moon, and Then Disappeared
Bolden: NASA Can't Build a Heavy Lift Launcher and it Won't
The Technical Record of the Apollo Program? A Space Junkyard (Video)
Yes. They were truly specialized and handmade.
Reagan was also fighting the Cold War. It ended in 1991 and so did the priority.
It’s obvious from your long and uninformed post that you don’t know what you don’t know.
Way to late for that.
Rick Perry was the best person in the running. The MSM, Republican elites, liberals and the WH were afraid of him.
I was also very surprised that people on this site were so very against him. He had a couple of bad debates that is all. To those that were mad that he said that some "must not have a heart" that, was it.
It was a shame too many were looking for perfection. (not possible) He was the best for our Country at this time.
Now we will select a candidate from the battered and torn list. It will obviously be the one with the most money. I really do not like the polls that come out everyday (although interesting), people answer these polls because they want to be on the popular side, afraid to vote their convictions.
Kind of like the plan to reduce federal health care cost by curing common, costly diseases like Alzheimers. Brilliant! Wonder why no one else thought of that before?
Gingrich's "vision," as stated in Florida, relied heavily on stirring public enthusiasm and voluntary investment from free enterprise sources for space exploration. His position noted, as well, the role of space in future national defense.
An ancient wisdom book contains these words, "Without a vision, the people perish."
Unless Romney and Santorum have a superior alternative "vision" they can articulate, then their criticisms fail to challenge the imagination of America's youth.
On a thread yesterday, I posted excerpts from President Ronald Reagan's "Speech to Schoolchildren," on November 14, 1988.
Those excerpts did not include the Q & A session, which included a question from a student regarding the President's thoughts on the future of America's space exploration. Here is the question and Reagan's reply:
Stuart Washington from Jefferson Junior High School:.
"Mr. President, do you wish to accelerate the rebirth of our National Aeronautical and Space Administration, also known as NASA?
The President:
"Yes, I think the new frontier in the whole world is out there in space. And we've made such progress in it, and it has proved so rewarding. This isn't talked about much, and many of you probably don't realize that experiments conducted on the shuttle when they're up there in space -- on all kinds of things that had nothing to do with space -- have brought benefits to us back here. Firemen, for example -- a fireproof fabric has changed and made their fireproof garments that they have to wear in battling a fire much lighter -- and that they can do that. Medicines -- certain medicines in which only up in the gravity-free space can they achieve certain mixtures. And they've come up with things that have been beneficial in that way. So, this is very important that we continue to do this. We were set back by the Challenger tragedy, but we must continue."
I can give you a real one.
Back about 20 years ago I had a co-worker who we suspected was gay and he would ‘march for a aids cure’ ever year and try to collect donations. I used to give him a hard time just for fun :)
So he gives me this crap that research into HIV symptom suppression drug was going to find a cure for cancer, so naturally we all would benefit from it.
I still have no need for a HIV drug
Still no cure for cancer.
I always wondered whatever happened to Eddie Haskel.
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