Moon Base vs. Economy

[miles]

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns...-base-challenge-for-a-big-country-112676.html

Newt Gingrich defended his proposal for a permanent base on the moon in a speech to Republicans in West Palm Beach Saturday night, calling it a "bold, visionary, dramatic opportunity for America."

"We will not turn to our grandchildren and say, 'We are the generation that let the Chinese dominate space," Gingrich said, calling the moon-shot plan a challenge worthy of "a big country."

I know this is an old story but what do you think about Newt's goals to build a permanent moon base? I think our children will be a lot more impressed if we are the generation that gets them out of economic hell.

Mostly, since this is such an old topic, this is a question about candidates and who you're interested in/rooting for and why? I really, personally have no clue right now, because although I'm angry with Obama about a few things, there's nobody in his opponents that really speaks to me all the way either.

 

[Hahvoc The Decepticon]

I don't even know how this could be a serious topic. Considering that it would take trillions of dollars and years to do?

And all the candidates are idiots, especially Santorum. What a bigoted dick. Sadly, all the candidates are terrible and have way too much of a personal agenda. It's just getting worse.

 

[Vekseid]

We have underutilized labor. Putting them to work on something productive means that labor gets used, they get money in their pockets that they can spend on other things, and the economy grows. A project the country can get behind could do wonders for that.

 

[miles]

Attaboy! I didn't even think of it that way and it does sound a lot less wacko than it did when I first read about it.

 

[Perlin]

Of all the candidates, Ron Paul is the only one I like. But never has a candidate equal exactly what I am looking for.

Ron Paul : By far the closest, but he does get a bit overblown carried away.

Mitt Romney: He is a flip-flopper but seem the lesser evil of all the rest. But for some reason the GOP establishment in Washington likes him, which in turns scares the living crap out of me.

Newt Gingrich: Totalitarian wacko. Some of the things he said or did in the past... Freddy Mac?!

Santorium: I don't know who is worse, him or Newt. Take Iran with Sharia law and substitute Christianity with Islam and you got him.

As for the moon base, I would like it but not now. Besides, private industry now is overtaking NASA, which can be a good or bad thing depending on what happens. It the companies running the space program has their claws in Washington (see MSM rant), it would be worse.

To me, the most important thing (other than not going to war with Iran if at all possible) is getting spending under control. I don't want more taxes, but don't give me a useless tax cut either. Neither will really help. I am revealing my politics here, but fidgeting with the economy the way they are doing it isn't helping. Case in point: giving over 500 million to Solyndra only to see it go bankrupt.

Here is what I really can't stand: the MSM. What does the tea party stand for? Less government spending, springing form the bank bailouts. How does Occupy Wall Street started? Wall Street bailouts. How do they treat each other? How is the MSM treating them? Ugh....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTN3s2iVKKI <= Every American needs to start thinking this way.

 

[As Day Fades]

Time to address the elephant in the room: What's the point of a moon base? Outside of 'beating the Chinese' and 'having a way cool spot for a secret lab'?

 

[Perlin]

Elephant?! Where?!? This porcupine want to tell him why I am so disappointed with the Republicans right now! (Oh the irony of the existence of the Libertarian Party)

Vekseid is the only one who seem to offer an argument for it, but is so Keynesian in his argument I doubt he is one or gets called a 'rino' from other Republicans. And I like the concept of one, but now is just not the time as I mentioned. We got enough crap at home that needs to be taken care of. There is a difference between dreaming and having an achievable goal. And it is not achievable. So I myself have not thought much about the why for that reason. And with the dollar being clobbered, one must have a good reason to do so ASAP. Not going to happen.

… … … Except maybe for a bunch of us porcupines to go someplace without government telling us what to or not to do.

 

[Vekseid]

1) Defense is probably the most obvious example. Any sufficiently large self-sustaining colony, if it becomes unfriendly, has at its disposal an unlimited supply of material for orbital bombardment. This has been known since before The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.

2) Obviously, it serves as a great research base. Especially for communicating with installations on the Moon's far side.

3) A polar base, if there is sufficient liquid water, could be made self-sustaining (there is oxygen and sun aplenty). In that sense, it's like an extreme form of colonialism, only a) A lot more expensive and b) We don't actually wipe out natives to do so.

4) We produce vastly more than we need, as is. What is the point of having a giant entertainment industry? What is the point of having sites like Blue Moon and Elliquiy around? A lot of what we do, we do because we can.

 

[Evo Var]

I am not going to touch the political side to this since I am not in the country.

The idea of making a moonbase/colony sounds pretty good to me. If it was established we could have access to a new fuel source aka helium-3 and whatever else they find up there. It will also be a place where our excess population can start to migrate since we cannot sustain the population we are going to have in a few decades.

Also from the moon the resources can be used to build more orbital facilities and even be the staging point for the colonization of other planets in the solar system. It is much cheaper to build and assemble a ship in space where it does not have to be pushed out of our atmosphere and brought up piece by piece like the space station.

I am not saying everything will work out perfectly but its a goal that not only a country can get behind but the world could. As for having private businesses taking over the space race it could be good but probably won't be.

 

[As Day Fades]

All the things Vek and Fre mentioned are thoughts I had myself, so right off the bat, I agree with them. I'm glad to see some discussion on it.

I don't think it would be cheaper to build/assemble things in space. If anything, I imagine it would be far more expensive -- you would still need to get all the material up there in the first place, not to mention keep enough of a labor force handy to put it all together.

I don't think this is unachievable. I wouldn't even call it unwise, in general. There's always going to be economic issues that need to be addressed, so there's always going to be something else available for us to spend our time and money on, but sometimes you just need to fit things like this in for the sake of advancement; that's how life is in general, building your future vs. concentrating on the here and now. Though, I would personally give it a few more years. We just ended two wars and are working on pulling ourselves out of the harshest economic rut the country has seen in a very long time -- let's catch up on the immediate things first.

Sadly, while I'm not familiar with Gingrich's stances and policies and viewpoints and such, the timing has me doubting this is about anything so noble. It's most likely pure politics, a grandiose idea to keep people talking about him and not his opponents.

 

[Evo Var]

I don't think it would be cheaper to build/assemble things in space. If anything, I imagine it would be far more expensive -- you would still need to get all the material up there in the first place, not to mention keep enough of a labor force handy to put it all together.

It would be expensive to set up a colony on the moon but as long as there is water we can set up food production in the colony. Once that is set up it should be easy to produce oxygen using the crops.


As for bringing up materials the moon has the resources in it already so we just need to mine them. Eventually we can just harvest asteroids instead of mining out the whole moon.