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Gingrich pledges moon colony during presidency

can a Newt support please justify the feasibility of his desire for a sound commodity backed monetary policy and his desire to colonize the moon in 8 years?

Thats a fair question :) because when we look at the current American system of entitlements and the tax rates I also have a couple of questions about who's going to pay for a rejuvenation of the manned space program...

How much more as a percentage of my income I'm going to have to pay in taxes to fund such a thing?

Or are we going to cut off some of the entitlements to try and keep taxes at the present rates? If so, which entitlements are we going to cut?

All legit questions

I think socialism is the culprit here. I also think if, we flush the entitlements and we return to a world of reasonable taxes and a manned space program. The problem is, we can't actually do any of that in a practical sense because of the entrenched bureaucracy in the legislative and judicial branches, and the simple fact that half of the people living in America are benefiting in one way or another from the same entitlements we'd need to cut.
 
Not nearly as extravagent as Romney will be supporting the Obamacare plan. You don't really believe he'll repeal it do you? That program will likely end up costing as much as a trip to Vulcan.

Its possible.....but just for a sec think about, the importance of establishing a moon colony (regardless if its Newt, Obama, left, right or whatever)

I know it's far off but bear with me..Whichever political entity controls the moon, potentially has an unbeatable weapon

Has anyone read Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. In the book, hydroponically grown wheat is shipped from the moon to earth. Bear in mind, the energy expenditure from the moon to the earth is much less than earth to moon. Cargo is launched from the moon with an electromagnetic catapult. When the colony gets pissed off and revolts, they bomb earth, particularly Cheyenne Mountain, with rocks. You simply cut out a large rock, slap a steel band around it for the magnet to grab. Gravity does the rest and it hits the earth at 10/12 km/s, releasing energy comparable to a small nuke.

And that my friends, is one of the fears of moon colonization. Hmmm...What if the Chinese get there first????

I hear u but at the moment...we do not posses the technology to keep our astronauts alive period.
Van Allen radiation belt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
I hear u but at the moment...we do not posses the technology to keep our astronauts alive period.
Van Allen radiation belt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Start hiring astronaughts that have fluke resistances to radiation. :p We could at least aim for floating air-towns (held aloft with earths lightest gasses maybe?) that hinge on the border of our atmosphere where they will still be protected. Work on a very small community living off of earth for 10ish years to start. Growing all their own food hanging garden/hydroponic style and finding resorceful ways to keep generating energy.

If we could have a colony survive at the border of our atmosphere that would be all the training we need to colonize space with further technilogical evolution. We need something more than a handfull of people on a space station.

Hell, if they made a good enough floater they could have a tow cord come down and lift craft the rest of the way out of orbit so that they wouldnt need crazy amounts of fuel to burn in order reach the neccessary speeds required from ground to orbit.

Maybe ive been watching too much sci-fi.
 
all I know is that for a trillion we have floated a couple hundred rich billionares to keep on flying around to their exotic vacation resorts. At a couple billion per space shuttle, would have built a fleet of 500 of those, or perhaps built dozens of moon launch vehicles and had easily colonized either the moon or mars. Instead we are left with economic ****. Yeah, face value Newt sounds ridiculous... but I'd personely have added millions to the workforce and gotten something outta it then what we got, and that is even ewithout realistic government spending which would have doubled the number... ok just double my 1st number... or perhaps fix pretty much all the rest of our earthly problems.... change a couple hunded billionaires can believe in....

Yeah, but we can do some stuff on earth first. Like high speed raid, optical backbone for high speed internet, fix our infrastructure, etc. Which is what we probably should have done instead of bailing out the banks and wallstreet.
 
In my opinion refunding NASA and space exploration is a very good idea as it develops new technologies.
 
In my opinion refunding NASA and space exploration is a very good idea as it develops new technologies.

I'm absolutely fine with that as soon as someone comes up with a way to pay for it.
 
I'm absolutely fine with that as soon as someone comes up with a way to pay for it.

Shift it from the military and all the political-green energy graft for starters. It might even be more worthwhile than funding studying Chinese prostitutes.
 
Shift it from the military and all the political-green energy graft for starters. It might even be more worthwhile than funding studying Chinese prostitutes.

I'm with you there again.
 
Oh, and I'd be happy if my taxes went towards manned space exploration (to see something tangible for my tax dollars like astronauts on Mars or the like)

The too hard, too dangerous, too inconvenient, too expensive crowd can stay back here and continue in the same vicious circle of cultural debauchery while the earth burns up (or freezes) and the rest of us go out and conquest the galaxies
 
Shift it from the military and all the political-green energy graft for starters. It might even be more worthwhile than funding studying Chinese prostitutes.

Hey now...Chinese, or better yet, French Veitnamese, prostitutes....DESERVE to be studied.
 
So...where do I go to purchase property on the moon? I want in on this...
 

I get the tongue in cheek response....but it was...SORT of, lol...a serious question. Who owns the moon, currently?


It's not like when we invaded the US, and instigated land grabs and property stakes...

Since we planted a flag there first...does the US government own the moon?
 
Oh, and I'd be happy if my taxes went towards manned space exploration (to see something tangible for my tax dollars like astronauts on Mars or the like)

The too hard, too dangerous, too inconvenient, too expensive crowd can stay back here and continue in the same vicious circle of cultural debauchery while the earth burns up (or freezes) and the rest of us go out and conquest the galaxies

Yep, increasing government spending is ok with conservatives as long as it's what THEY want. A lot different than the "we can't afford ANY increase in government spending" rhetoric they've spat since last July.
 
Oh, and I'd be happy if my taxes went towards manned space exploration (to see something tangible for my tax dollars like astronauts on Mars or the like)

The too hard, too dangerous, too inconvenient, too expensive crowd can stay back here and continue in the same vicious circle of cultural debauchery while the earth burns up (or freezes) and the rest of us go out and conquest the galaxies

To paraphrase George Carlin;
What are we going to tell the intergallactic council of planets the first time some earth girl ditches her baby in a space trash bin?

Im thinking full on angel invasion :p
 
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