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The Spectacle Blog
Mitt Romney chides Newt Gingrich for talking about a lunar colony on the moon. But when Romney says he’ll bring together top professors, the military and corporate America to discuss the future of space, it’s a polit way of saying that he has no clue what he’s going to do. If anyone is out to space, it’s Romney.
View all comments (35) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2012/01/26/romney-is-out-to-space
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Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:06PM
But it's not gonna hurt him very much.
Hobbes| 1.26.12 @ 9:48PM
Goldstein
Not as out to space as your boy Moon Unit Gingrich.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:08PM
Aaron,
Can you open a "running blog/thread" titled "Debate" and continue to add to it while the rest of us continue to chime in?
Regards,
Mike
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.26.12 @ 9:11PM
That's a dense response to an intelligent remark.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:13PM
Bill, were you talking to me?
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.26.12 @ 9:14PM
No, to the original commentator.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:15PM
ROGER
JimH| 1.27.12 @ 9:26AM
Now you are talking like an astronaut.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.26.12 @ 9:16PM
Christ! What's with all the Hispanic questioners?
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:17PM
It's Florida...HUGE Hispanic population...Not just Cubans...lots of Mexican, Guatemalan etc also.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:18PM
They would generally really prefer to vote Republican, but we tend to drive some away with some of the more draconian immigration policies...especially the way we fail to articulate them well.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.26.12 @ 9:26PM
It's ridiculous.
apnep| 1.27.12 @ 12:07PM
Bill, I'm hispanic, but I'm with you. I thought it was ridiculous. I thought the whole cheesey "movie" type preview of the debate was ridiculous; I thought Wolf was ridiculous with his fight baitng questions; and the whole "look at me I'm hispanic hear how I roll my R's and ask 'important' questions while the nation watches" bit was ridiculous. But I have to agree with Santorum on the space subject, we don't have the money right now for space.
Clint| 1.26.12 @ 9:29PM
Sponsors Of Debate: CNN en Español, The Hispanic Leadership Network
Clint| 1.26.12 @ 9:16PM
We Can't Afford To Piss Away TaxPayers' Confiscated Money Playing Spaceman.
Space Defense Weaponry Is Another Matter.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:20PM
If it was mostly a private sector deal...it would generate a lot of revenue...Aviation was just a novelty at one time
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 9:46PM
One flows from the other.
Space development enlarges the realm of the possible for our military usages.
Don't see them divided. It's kind of like aerospace, where commercial development mirror imaged military development.
Look at the old C3, which dropped paras on Sicily, Salerno, Normandy, Holland and Corregidor, but also flew passengers all over the place.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 9:35PM
Nobody save PAUL {!!!} mentioned the relationship between national security and space development.
God why didn't Gingrich remind voters of the crucial interrelationship between our space program and our dominance of air/space, which is absolutely crucial to our armed forces, particularly when our armed forces are shrinking.
When our forces are shrinking, AIR/SPACE DOMINANCE becomes all the more important.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:39PM
does it appear that Blitzer is quashing applause when Gingrich says something that would be expected to generate it? I just noticed this in the Cuba answer....Gingrich's answer should have got a large ovation in that crowd.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 9:43PM
Blitzer has helped Romney.
Very deftly though, nothing that would allow any Gingrich supporter to really make a big thing about it, for if he were to do so, it would all look like sour grapes.
Blitzer really helped Romney tonight when he saved him from Santorum, who exposed Romney badly on the whole underlying political problem of having as a nominee a guy who imposed Romneycare.
Romney KNEW he was getting hurt.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:48PM
"Deftly" is the right word. He's using "moving on to the next person/question to either allow, extend, terminate or quash applause.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 10:24PM
Exactly.
And all in a way that really can't trigger much complaint.
Not a single question on mineral resources development. Nothing about the cancelled pipeline.
Nothing about the cost of rising gasoline, and how it impacts Florida's tourism industry.
But we did get a question on first ladies!
Unbelievable.
somnolence| 1.26.12 @ 9:46PM
I'm sorry, but you are so wrong it is pitiful. Romney got positive response applause in a state where the quest for space began when he emphasized the economy of Earth comes first. Yours is just a typical anti-Romney reactionary's response out of the starting block, mirroring most of your personal density of late.
Mike 3/505| 1.26.12 @ 9:50PM
Romney is doing good on his own...better than he has in previous...but that don't mean Blitzer ain't helping him either.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 10:27PM
Romney effectively confessed his unawareness of the relationship between American aerospace dominance, air/space battlespace dominance, and our space program.
Gingrich, who has been closely following developments for over three decades, didn't really get a chance to go in depth on the issue.
Which is a shame, for it's not just a Florida issue with Cape Kennedy.
Thom| 1.26.12 @ 9:58PM
Reality check. Four years of Apollo between 68-72 cost 25 billion and all that could do is put two men at a time on the surface of the moon and get off the surface barely with a few “rocks” on board. Adjust that cost for inflation.
All the solvable short term space related problems were solved with Apollo. The Shuttle program never even approached the grandiose claims regarding its reusability and cost effectiveness. It was designed to bring things back down from space as well and note how many missions where it brought anything back but the people on board. There’s a real practical reason for that. No shuttles were replaced after being lost due to cost.
The entire annual NASA budget now would not be 20% of what is required to reconstitute the regular and repeated capability we had in 1972 with just a three man capsule system. 100 billion has been spent on a runaway high school science project in near orbit that takes enormous expense just to supply it and its tiny crew regularly.
There are real world problems with extended space travel and living and working in what is essentially a weightless environment even on the moon. Then there is the “cost” and the government’s inability to actually project the real cost of such programs repeatedly.
We aren’t going back to the moon or even back into manned programs like we had in the past with a national debt greater than our annual GDP and climbing as far as the eye can see into the future……
It isn’t going to happen. I worked on the Shuttle Program in the early to mid 70s. We don’t have the capability, capacity or money to fund what it would take. No pie in the eye vision is going solve the real problems with this proposal or an untapped wellspring of money suddenly appear to pay for what would be required to just get back to what we had in 1972. The sad truth but never the less the truth.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 10:30PM
When you see China moving towards a lunar landing, with all the international clout that goes along with it, when you see America's foreign policy problems compounded by the sight of China moving into space while America grapples with the aftermath of the passage of obamacare, --------------- when you see all that go down and when you see China start developing Generation 5 and 6 fighter/bombers, ---------------------------- it's not going to be a joke anymore.
It is absolutely crucial America maintain a significant edge in cyberspace and aerospace.
Absolutely crucial.
Christopher C| 1.27.12 @ 3:11AM
And all that has to be done is to ram through a pretty radical shrinkage in federal government spending, a pretty radical pruning of economic activity-shrinking federal regulations (no matter that some of them may, just may, be justified) and a completely radical re-structuring of the federal tax system.
Minus those moves, I regret that it won't just be cyberspace and aerospace edges that go missing in action. It will be something much more basic - the USA's place and standing in the world.
The US is soon to have a Wiley E Coyote economic moment. Depending on exactly when that happens, the country may be close enough to the cliff edge to hold on. But ignoring Obamacare implementation costs, tax hikes (just on the "rich", of course) and idiotic government spending-as-usual will take the country a very long, long way down.
By ignoring, I mean re-electing Mr Obama, or nominating a Republican candidate who cannot credibly repudiate Obamacare.
somnolence| 1.26.12 @ 10:22PM
When man stepped on the moon for the very first time in 1969 that was one of the greatest pinnacles in human history. But other than that one of the greatest legacies of conquering space is that it gave us TANG. As George Jones sang many years ago "What am I worth, here on Earth".
Pete| 1.26.12 @ 10:45PM
And the 50 years that followed have been a huge disappointment. NASA degenerated into a quasi-military organization and lost all vision. We could not put a man on the moon today. Not even if we gave ourself the rest of the decade to do it.
Drek| 1.26.12 @ 10:55PM
NASA is literally and figuratively going in circles, fixated on orbital platforms.
As JFK gave NASA a mission and a focus, once that focus of the moon was lost, NASA's whole mission has lost focus.
Outside of Hubbel, I can't really think of a success for NASA.
It's time to rename NASA to something much more wideranging and ambitious, something that reflects a generational plan for American space development.
Not to put too much of a nerd spin on it or something, but Star Fleet Command has a nice ring to it.
NASA has failed us though.
But then again, when so much of the government has failed us, why should they be any different.
NASA isn't immune to the incompetence that the Democrats and liberals visit upon every other agency or department they dominate. And they dominate everything.
Richard Baker| 1.27.12 @ 2:03AM
Drek:
I think you mean the C-47 or as the Brits call it the Dakota.
Pete:
By the way, NASA was always a quasi-military organization. Ike decided that the first seven Astronauts would be selected from the ranks of military test pilots and the rest of the astronaut pilots have all had a military background whether USMC, Navy, or Air Force. Also, many of the non-pilots had the same background beyond their academic training. What Newt is doing on a lunar colony is challenging us to think big. He has stated "Go big or go home".
Derek Leaberry| 1.27.12 @ 8:51AM
Countries with perpetual $ 1.5 trillion deficits can not afford a space program no matter how many self-delusional shills there are clamoring for such preposterous notions as colonizing the Moon and going to Mars.
OLDRAY| 1.27.12 @ 9:04AM
Last night Romney showed how little he knows about other than big business. He seems willin g to let China lead in control of space . No moon base. let the Chinese do it according to Romney. It is part of national defense and we can not afford to allow control of space to fall into the hands of China. Romney is LOST IN SPACE DEFENSE.
JimH| 1.27.12 @ 9:28AM
I posted this in reponse to another blog post, but it fits here too.
Let’s be clear about Newt’s space program. From what I see it consists of removing the regulatory difficulties which exist today for private space development, possibly sharing government facilities with private developers and offering prizes for various accomplishments in space; the cost of which would be far less than is wasted on earmarks today. Newt knows that it is important for American greatness in the future we must have a significant presence in space and we ought not to be relying on Russian boosters to get us there. It is important commercially and militarily to occupy the strategic high ground. Even Dr. Paul, who would bring all our troops home from all over the world, recognized last night that our presence in space is necessary to our defense. Americans should have big dreams and as long as the taxpayer is not asked to foot the bill, I’m all for them.