Don't need to clik on the link and RTFA.

I learned existential logic, and when the proposer of any idea is already moon-bat-shiat nuts, you can pretty much dismiss any spittle pocked thing that flies out of his mouth.

Taco breathed dick hole that he is.

Tanstaafl.

Newt wants a moonbase so he has a place to send old and busted wives.

any permanent presence on the moon is a non-runner no matter the technology or budget, period.

mars would actually be cheaper, easier, and more technically feasible to establish a presence on. smart money in the aerospace field says when we do go, its going to be there and/or orbital manufacturing/asteroid mining first.

the moon is a bad, bad, bad idea.

Newt 2012!

Newt was pandering to NASA employees and the economy that made a living off of them.

//That is all

Rasha faja nashi, nacho majo si. Limo sacho buratti, ela jingstao mau.

- Newt Gingrich

1. I'm sure in the 1960s there were plenty of lists of reasons why we could never put a man on the moon. Still used to "prove" we never went.

2. The entire point of the Space Station is to prove (and learn how) man can exist in a hostile environments like the moon and long space travel.

So fark off.

/not defending Newt, puhleaze

So we are against space exploration now? Any politician, whether retarded or not, pushing for space exploration is a good thing.

B-b-but we need to get there before China does!



THAT DOESN'T COUNT!

What? Nothing better to greenlight???

vudukungfu: Don't need to clik on the link and RTFA.

I learned existential logic, and when the proposer of any idea is already moon-bat-shiat nuts, you can pretty much dismiss any spittle pocked thing that flies out of his mouth.

Taco breathed dick hole that he is.


Taco breathed dick hole that he is. LOL

You, my friend, have been added to my favourites.

We could take less money and do a LOT of cool undersea work, up to and including outfitting custom nuclear-powered submarines for scientific exploration and archaeology.

/space nerd

NewportBarGuy: Eddie Adams from Torrance: When the NV primaries roll around, he'll probably be advocating for a casino and whorehouse on Mars.

With cheap domes that ensure mutations among the population.

Three-breasted prostitutes FTW!

I want a moon base! I am voting for Newt!!! He is right about innovation coming from doing it. Trickle-down innovation! Vote Newt!!

With what money, Newt? I thought the US government had a spending problem, and last I checked all the private operators were focusing on profitable LEO and geosynchronous satellite launch operations. Who's going to have the gonads to put up a few hundred billion without a guarantee of a profit these days?

vudukungfu: Don't need to clik on the link and RTFA.

I learned existential logic, and when the proposer of any idea is already moon-bat-shiat nuts, you can pretty much dismiss any spittle pocked thing that flies out of his mouth.

Taco breathed dick hole that he is.

Argumentum ad hominem (new window)

Do you actually think The Slate would actually endorse anything any Republican would propose? Regardless of whether or not its a good idea, the Slate is definitely left leaning in its bias.

xtragrind: So we are against space exploration now? Any politician, whether retarded or not, pushing for space exploration is a good thing.

Yeah, I don't get why this blew up the way it did.

In 1945 it cost $10 a minute to talk from New York to Los Angeles, and you couldn't do it all the time.

In 2011, I bought a whole telephone at Walmart for $10, and a card for $20 which lets me talk anywhere in the world for 18 cents a minute. I checked the phone by calling a guy at the next table ten feet away and there was a 1/4--second lag, because the call was bounced off satellite.

Your phone, your computer, your Innertubes, your banking and credit systems, all come from space research.

In 1961 the average life expectancy was 65 years, while today it is 78 for women, 74 for men---and rising. Most of that is due to space research.

Crops are better every year because space research has made for better weather forecasts, so don't talk with your mouth full---it is not polite.

If you really think space research is a crock, go ahead and braid yourself a grass skirt and chase your dinner with a sharp stick; the rest of us like the good things in life which scientific research has to offer. Take your horsesh*t opinions and wipe your ass with them.

xtragrind: So we are against space exploration now? Any politician, whether retarded or not, pushing for space exploration is a good thing.

Except that Newt's not proposing something that actually moves real space exploration ahead, he's just pandering.

Like when W said we would go to Mars. It's a load of crap designed to shake up a segment of the voting block with promises that cannot be kept.

How would the grinch pay for said moonbase? With tax cuts? Newtie, please.

I don't think I will ever forgive Newt Gingrich for associating himself with space exploration. The right will keep hating it because it's expensive and doesn't do anything to improve old-man boners (what science is for), and now the left will start hating it because of the (albeit compelling) argument that everything Newt says should be dismissed out of hand.

We do need a better way of getting shiat into orbit, of course, before a moon base is really worthwhile.

Newt is great! I hope he wins the nomination!

/Team Obama

I'll admit, I'm torn here. On one side, Newt's idea very much is "pants-on-head retarded" (a phrase that should be bandied about more often when it comes to talking about politicians and their policies).

On the other hand, given how unprofitable space exploration is in the short term (which is what corporations care about), and given how much our manned space program has been gutted recently, I'm having a hard time arguing against anyone championing such a program. What's the quote about "someday the sun will go out, and if we aren't off this rock, everything humanity has ever done is for nothing"? It seems relevant.

On the third hand, though, he's basically just sucking up to the Florida areospace industry, and will be just as likely to stay faithful to this campaign promise as he was to stay faithful to his wife.

Gerald: Do you actually think The Slate would actually endorse anything any Republican would propose? Regardless of whether or not its a good idea, the Slate is definitely left leaning in its bias.

True, but to be fair it is sometimes hard to tell the difference between 'left leaning' and 'factual' sometimes. They tend to often overlap to the point of being functionally indistinguishable sometimes.

If only truth didn't have that annoying liberal bias.

We'll be ready for a permanent moon or mars colony just as soon as we have permanent colonies in the dry valleys of Antarctica -- and not a day sooner. And it will have schools, civil infrastructure and its own economy. In short, that's probably *never* going to happen.

I'm still laughing at how fast Gingrich burned out. This moonbase idea would be a good idea if the Republican Party 1) hadn't sunk the economy and 2) created a political divide based on choosing religion over science. Exactly how is a GOP candidate that panders to the Jesus Crowd going to find a trillion dollars to invest in SCIENCE, again?

The whole thing is silly. Gingrich's false sincerity doesn't help him in the way he thinks it does. If anything, it just lost him Florida while giving both Romney and the Democrats perfect ways to undermine anything he'll ever do again while proving that Teabaggers aren't even in their right minds. They can't even be consistent enough in their own 'belief' system.

Do you really need a point-by-point analysis of anything said by a republican candidate for president to determine that it is pants-on-head stupid?

/cut to the chase people

Of course it's expensive, and since there's no one but a few space nuts like myself will actually support this initiative regardless of who proposes it...well, to paraphrase Luke Skywalker "I'm never getting off this [farking] rock!".

We should do it just because we believe that going to the stars might give meaning to our little lives, and I mean whilst we are alive, not in company of some theoretical sky wizard.

A lunar Colony would teach us much about long duration space flight without having to be IN free space - you know, vacuum engineering, hydroponics, air conditioning [which includes O2 management], water, etc. A Colony would be able to have multiply redundant systems and would be able to build and test new stuff all the time, perfecting the systems in a real life environment. "Space walking" or going on the surface would have to become a bit more routine, and we would develop transportation systems....etc. etc.

Imagine a "flying Bedstead" on the moon.

Gives me wood just thinking about the opportunities.

olddinosaur: In 1945 it cost $10 a minute to talk from New York to Los Angeles, and you couldn't do it all the time.

In 2011, I bought a whole telephone at Walmart for $10, and a card for $20 which lets me talk anywhere in the world for 18 cents a minute. I checked the phone by calling a guy at the next table ten feet away and there was a 1/4--second lag, because the call was bounced off satellite.

Your phone, your computer, your Innertubes, your banking and credit systems, all come from space research.

In 1961 the average life expectancy was 65 years, while today it is 78 for women, 74 for men---and rising. Most of that is due to space research.

Crops are better every year because space research has made for better weather forecasts, so don't talk with your mouth full---it is not polite.

If you really think space research is a crock, go ahead and braid yourself a grass skirt and chase your dinner with a sharp stick; the rest of us like the good things in life which scientific research has to offer. Take your horsesh*t opinions and wipe your ass with them.

So little of the above is true that it makes me wonder if you're a troll.

We shouldn't hate space exploration. We should hate meaningless, useless proposals like Newt's moon base proposal. We should research things that will allow us to explore further, knowing it is a long-term project. We should work with other countries, and their funds and manpower, to do this.

Focusing on achievements of the past is no way to go forward. Instead, look to new things, and you'll find developments that benefit us in many other ways beyond mere exploration.

First we have a moonbase. Next they are throwing rocks at us.

Somebody needs to tell Newt that those hot chicks in purple wigs aren't going to be there. *ssshhh! That was just a TV show*

It is from Newt. What more needs to be said?

Guntram Shatterhand: I'm still laughing at how fast Gingrich burned out. This moonbase idea would be a good idea if the Republican Party 1) hadn't sunk the economy and 2) created a political divide based on choosing religion over science. Exactly how is a GOP candidate that panders to the Jesus Crowd going to find a trillion dollars to invest in SCIENCE, again?

You are correct. I just wish that humans actually would return to the moon, establish bases and other cool shiat, doesn't matter if it is the USA, China or the EU. But only if we don't do something stupid like go to war with Iran.