Forgive me, I haven't read all of this thread.
A funny I read on facebook today....
"Can we just make Newt president of the moon colony?"
Forgive me, I haven't read all of this thread.
A funny I read on facebook today....
"Can we just make Newt president of the moon colony?"
Unfortunately comprehension is up to the individuals ability.Originally Posted by Gregg
No, it would still be Feregi to you.
As soon as somebody demonstrates the art of flying, settlers from our species of man will not be lacking [on the Moon and Jupiter]. . . . Who would have believed that a huge ocean could be crossed more peacefully and safely than the the narrow expanse of the Adriatic, the Baltic Sea or the English Channel? Provide ship or sails adapted to the heavenly breezes, and there will be some who will not fear even that void [of space]. . . . So, for those who will come shortly to attempt this journey, let us establish the astronomy: Galileo, you of Jupiter, I of the Moon.
— Johannes Kepler, letter to Galileo Galilei, 'Conversation with the Messenger from the Stars,' 19 April 1610.
In my own view, the important achievement of Apollo was a demonstration that humanity is not forever chained to this planet, and our visions go rather further than that, and our opportunities are unlimited.
— Neil Armstrong, July 1999.
All of the following individuals are on record as believing that we must expand beyond the Earth:
http://www.spacequotations.com/colonization.html
Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, Isaac Asimov, John Jacob Astor, J. D. Bernal, Frank Borman, Ben Bova, Ray, Bradbury, William E. Burrows, Charles Chafer, Arthur C. Clarke, Michael Collins, Walter Cronkite, Paul Davies, Freeman Dyson, Newt Gingrich, Buckminster Fuller, Robert Goddard, Michael Griffin, David Grinspoon, Stephen Hawking, Robert A. Heinlein, T. A. Heppenheimer, Frank Herbert, Charles Holbrow, Richard D. Johnson, Johannes Kepler, Timothy Leary, Bruce Murray, Elon Musk, Larry Niven, Hermann Oberth, Gerard K. O'Neill, Jerry Pournelle, Corey Powell, Martin Rees, Gene Roddenberry, Carl Sagan, Marshall T. Savage, Robert Shapiro, Charles Sheldon, Olaf Stapledon, Max Tegmark, Henry David Thoreau, Frank J. Tipler, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Rick Tumlinson, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Tom Wolfe, U.S. Human Spaceflight Plans Committee, John Young, Robert Zubrin,
If Newt Gingrich is crazy for advocating a permanent settlement on the Moon, then he is in extremely good company...
"Imagine how foolish you would feel if you didn't try only because someone said you're a lunatic."
— Paul Horowitz, Harvard physicist and SETI veteran, Discover magazine, July/August 2010.
Best,
Rodger
Last edited by morris_rl; 1-27-12 at 6:46pm.
Let us establish the moon colony and then offer Newt the position. My guess is that he would accept...
Best,
Rodger
"If Newt Gingrich is crazy for advocating a permanent settlement on the Moon, then he is in extremely good company..."
Crazy is secondary (I love the idea myself; I'm a huge space nut). Poor priorities are primary. This is the man who begrudges federal spending on keeping ordinary people fed, housed, and educated in a catastrophic economic situation not of their making. Otherwise, I'm sure it wouldn't be the object of so many derisive comments. Rodger, you're a big supporter of the concept, obviously, and I love that you're so passionate about it. But where do you suggest the trillions to do it might come from?
If the human race is to survive and thrive in the long term, then we simply must expand into space. As Arthur C. Clarke once said so trenchantly:
"There is no way back into the past; the choice, as Wells once said, is the universe—or nothing. Though men and civilizations may yearn for rest, for the dream of the lotus-eaters, that is a desire that merges imperceptibly into death. The challenge of the great spaces between the worlds is a stupendous one; but if we fail to meet it, the story of our race will be drawing to its close."
— Arthur C. Clarke, Interplanetary Flight, 1950.
Setting up a colony on the moon need not cost trillions of dollars. Use a prize system, as was successfully done in aviation, and as was successfully done with the Ansari X-Prize for achieving suborbital flight.
For example, offer a tax free cash prize of $20 billion for the first private entity that can establish a colony on the moon staffed by 10 people or more for 720 consecutive days. If nobody achieves the terms of the prize, it costs the American taxpayer nothing. If it does succeed, a capability exists that the U.S. may contract to use as needed...
If you wish to avoid a monopoly, offer two such prizes, say $20 billion and $10 billion. Even $30 billion is between two and three orders of magnitude less than the trillions of dollars the naysayers throw around as the minimum cost of such a colony. And if I am wrong in this and the cost is on the order of trillions of dollars, then there is no cost to the American taxpayer, as the prize(s) will go unclaimed.
Newt Gingrich explicitly stated that he was strongly in favor of establishing such prizes.
Best,
Rodger
Had to stop and read this in Slate today after the discussion here:
http://www.slate.com/articles/techno...ars_plan_.html
Apparently not everyone is impressed by Newt's idea.
And to think Obama got flack from Republicans for wanting to give some funds to help a planetarium.
Hi, Rodger!
This all completely ignores the fact that it would take 8 years to build the space program to get there--making it Newt's retirement home.
The new part, building a habitable base on the moon, would probably take longer.
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