Newt Skywalker And His Moonbase?

[Drewish]

I"m listening to that interview now. About 10 minutes in. Way to go for the personal attack bro.

You sneered at something before you even heard. Way to go fundy, bro.

I'm in no mood for your condescending ignorance and complete inability to get a joke right now.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

It helps to see the future of that if one has a really nice keyhole to peep through.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I"m listening to that interview now. About 10 minutes in. Way to go for the personal attack bro.

You sneered at something before you even heard. Way to go fundy, bro.

I'm in no mood for your condescending ignorance and complete inability to get a joke right now.

TFB.

[MrJonno]

Governments/public sector build the roads to space (taking large probably unprofitable risks in themselves) and the private sector takes advantage of it which is the whole purpose of having roads. They never make a profit in themselves but enable others to do so

[Feck]

But Newt made the speech in Florida ...isn't that state so full of senile people they actually don't count the ballots there ?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

But Newt made the speech in Florida ...isn't that state so full of senile people they actually don't count the ballots there ?

Including C.E.S.?

[Coito ergo sum]

One thing space advocates rarely mention (or possibly even think about) is the potential military applications of this R&D. I don't want to breach the subject by talking about how dangerous or immoral that could be; that could come later as people would probably want to bring it up. I just want to say that, as with the development of aircraft over a century ago, I believe the development of space-based military power is totally inevitable (and in many ways, has already begun). It wouldn't be a good thing for any great power to ignore the potential of it, or use wishful thinking to talk itself out of the certainty of it.

That is always a good point, and all the more reason not to just "leave it to China."

[amused]

But Newt made the speech in Florida ...isn't that state so full of senile people they actually don't count the ballots there ?

It's also the home of the NASA launch facilities where lots of high pay jobs are on the line.

The militarization of space has already happened - remember those 'secret' space shuttle missions? So we might as well make the moonbase a DoD project and build a

Big. Fucking. Laser.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The rock thrower in The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress would be fun, I think.

[amused]

More proof that the moon landings, and even the moon itself, are fake.

A model of a moon base by Bigelow Aerospace, which says it is not a far-fetched idea.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/28/scien ... l?_r=1&hpw

[Warren Dew]

You're preaching to the wrong guy, my friend. I have never said that the government should not be involved in various things. That's someone else. If you're making a general statement not directed at me personally, then I understand that there are some people who would support Newt's suggestion, but also oppose all or most other government activities. I'm just not one of those people (although I do oppose many government activities - it's not black and white for me - I don't say "government good" or "government bad")

One, there weren't any restraints on the private sector, other than the government not giving them hundreds of millions of dollars to use for the projects. The private sector is not restrained by a NASA program to send men to the Moon an build a base.

Two, the private sector did not pick up the challenge to go to the Moon. There is no private sector Moon program.

Three, there is no reason there can't be a vibrant private sector space industry, and also a vibrant public sector Apollo-style program for the Moon and Mars. The private sector is not in a position to make the leap to those monumentally expensive projects because there is no business interest in it. They're too long term, and the returns on investment, such as mining, energy production, and other possible ways to recoup costs, are too remote. It's an ideal area for the government to take the lead and fund fabulously scientifically valuable program, and a program that is valuable to all mankind.

Did you watch the debate where Gingrich mentioned this? It did not sound to me like Gingrich meant it to be a government program. Rather, he wanted the government to spend a limited amount of money - he talked about 10% of the NASA budget, as I recall, which would be just under $2 billion a year - on prizes along the lines of the Ansari X-prize to encourage private enterprise to push into space. He also talked about opening the Kennedy space center to private use.

The Ansari X prize, by the way, was a privately funded prize awarded to the first private manned flight into space. Scaled Composites won it with SpaceShipOne, and are on track to make commercial flights in a couple years with their SpaceShipTwo. Virgin Galactic is selling tickets for these suborbital space flights for $200,000 each, and has sold hundreds of tickets. Commercial space flight has actually been making remarkable strides, given it's only been around for a few years.

So what could $2 billion do? Well, Virgin Galactic has sold and provided orbital tourist flights to the International Space Station for around $30 million each. Getting someone to the moon takes about three times as much as getting someone to orbit. So Newt's proposed $2 billion a year should be able to send 20 people to the moon even without a multiplier from private enterprise. Doing it through prizes should drive the cost down substantially from that.

The numbers make Gingrich's idea about a permanent moon base this decade much more plausible than it might initially appear. In fact, the numbers make it seem so achievable that the fact we haven't done it yet is a tribute to just how inefficient fully governmental space flight programs are.