Gingrich promises moon base

[CaptainChewbacca]

Link

A colony on the moon? Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich floated the idea before a massive audience on Florida's space coast. Thousands lost jobs there when the space shuttle quit flying, so what he told them was music to their ears -- the promise of jobs once again, another space race.

Gingrich offered his vision of an ambitious new space program. "By the end of my second term," Gingrich said, "we will have the first permanent base on the moon and it will be American." The crowd erupted in applause.

And he was just getting started; by 2020, he said, there would be regular flights to Mars.

"I am sick of being told we have to be timid and I'm sick of being told we have to be limited to technologies that are 50 years old," Gingrich said.

But what are the realities? Earth already has a space colony in Earth orbit, and it's been expensive. It is the International Space Station (no one ever came up with a catchier name because that's a political hot potato). This orbiting outpost cost $100 billion to build over 10 years, after a decade of planning, with the combined efforts of 16 countries.

The station currently it has a crew of six on board, and they spend about 35 hours a week between them on cutting-edge science. The rest of the time is spent maintaining the station.

Stop someone on the street and ask them about who is in space and you are likely to get a blank look. Interest in the space program has waned.

The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, joined Apollo 13 commander James Lovell and Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan in writing a letter to President Obama, chastising him for failing to have a replacement vehicle for the space shuttle fleet, and encouraging him to start a new space effort.

"For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature," they wrote

NASA could certainly build a colony on the Moon. They know how to get there, and they know what to do when they land. Engineers have already designed the rockets, the spacecraft, the rovers, and inflatable habitats -- all prepared after President George W. Bush proposed in 2004 to go back to the moon.

That program was called Constellation. It lasted until President Obama took office.

But a commission, appointed by Obama and chaired by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, said a return to the moon just wasn't financially practical -- without an extra $3 billion a year, NASA just wouldn't have the money to make it work.

That's a tough sell in today's economy.

Obama canceled Constellation and called for yet another program, one which isn't fully funded, and has no specific destination -- perhaps a passing asteroid and eventually an expedition to Mars. Planners at NASA must have whiplash trying to keep up with the changes each administration throws at them.

The potential of exploring and living on the Moon excites many -- including former astronaut Steve Lindsey, who commanded the last flight of the space shuttle Discovery.

The station currently it has a crew of six on board, and they spend about 35 hours a week between them on cutting-edge science. The rest of the time is spent maintaining the station.

Stop someone on the street and ask them about who is in space and you are likely to get a blank look. Interest in the space program has waned.

The first man on the moon, Neil Armstrong, joined Apollo 13 commander James Lovell and Apollo 17 commander Eugene Cernan in writing a letter to President Obama, chastising him for failing to have a replacement vehicle for the space shuttle fleet, and encouraging him to start a new space effort.

"For The United States, the leading space faring nation for nearly half a century, to be without carriage to low Earth orbit and with no human exploration capability to go beyond Earth orbit for an indeterminate time into the future, destines our nation to become one of second or even third rate stature," they wrote

NASA could certainly build a colony on the Moon. They know how to get there, and they know what to do when they land. Engineers have already designed the rockets, the spacecraft, the rovers, and inflatable habitats -- all prepared after President George W. Bush proposed in 2004 to go back to the moon.

That program was called Constellation. It lasted until President Obama took office.

But a commission, appointed by Obama and chaired by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, said a return to the moon just wasn't financially practical -- without an extra $3 billion a year, NASA just wouldn't have the money to make it work.

That's a tough sell in today's economy.

Obama canceled Constellation and called for yet another program, one which isn't fully funded, and has no specific destination -- perhaps a passing asteroid and eventually an expedition to Mars. Planners at NASA must have whiplash trying to keep up with the changes each administration throws at them.

The potential of exploring and living on the Moon excites many -- including former astronaut Steve Lindsey, who commanded the last flight of the space shuttle Discovery.

NASA engineers and planners are already working on that mission in a theoretical sense. But to solve the issues of propulsion and survival in interplanetary space takes money -- billions of dollars, money that just isn't in NASA's budget.

Lindsey, and other astronauts, who wouldn't be astronauts if they didn't believe in space exploration, say it is our destiny to go where no one has gone before.

The moon, Lindsey says, is the logical first step. "If we're going to ever go interplanetary, like to Mars , it sure would be a good idea to practice somewhere that's only four days away from the earth. The moon is in our future, we will go there. It's just a matter of time. And if we want to go to Mars, I think we have to go to the moon first."

I think he means it, I believe he's talked about this stuff before, and he's certainly written enough alternate history fiction to qualify as a nerd.

[Thanas]

Well, he needs somewhere far away from the media to house his mistresses.

[Themightytom]

Can't we just save money and annex Mexico?

Or better yet, Austrailia! It already looks kind of like an upside down US....

[dragon]

The moon hum. Nah one great idea doesn't make up for the rest.

[Simon_Jester]

We couldn't do it by the end of his second term. If Constellation had continued through the Obama administration, and if a hypothetical Gingrich administration weren't planning to take a giant chainsaw to the federal budget, it would be at least remotely possible. But since it didn't, and they would, he is just "promising us the moon," in the old sense of the phrase.

[Sidewinder]

I'd think the first step to building a lunar base, is to reform NASA, so shuttle replacement programs will NOT be bogged down by engineers' inflated projections of its performance, administrators' understatements of the $$$ needed for development, bureaucrats' understatements of the $$$ an in-service system needs, politicians' demands that it use 40-year-old Saturn V engines or other questionable technology, etc...

Fix that, and a space program will be achievable and, more importantly, AFFORDABLE.

[Stark]

Sounds like you want to fix the hilarious procurement process that makes everyone involved rich.

[Darmalus]

We aren't going anywhere, ever again. That would require NASA having a budget and goals that don't radically change with every election cycle. Until that happens, it's gonna be projects small enough to be finished quickly and cheaply, anything else doomed.

[Sea Skimmer]

I'd think the first step to building a lunar base, is to reform NASA, so shuttle replacement programs will NOT be bogged down by engineers' inflated projections of its performance, administrators' understatements of the $$$ needed for development, bureaucrats' understatements of the $$$ an in-service system needs, politicians' demands that it use 40-year-old Saturn V engines or other questionable technology, etc...

Fix that, and a space program will be achievable and, more importantly, AFFORDABLE.

How exactly do better cost projections in any way make a system more affordable? At best it just means you know how unaffordable it will be up front, so it never gets built.

[PeZook]

I'd actually like to see a politician who champions the resurrection of the F-1 engine, instead of calling for endless redesigns of the SSME in the hope it will eventually become the cheap option

[Skgoa]

A US politician promising massive space project in a speech given in Florida? Yeah, that's going to be #1 on his agenda when elected.

I'd think the first step to building a lunar base, is to reform NASA, so shuttle replacement programs will NOT be bogged down by administrators' inflated projections of its performance, understatements of the $$$ needed for development, bureaucrats' understatements of the $$$ an in-service system needs, politicians' demands that it use 40-year-old Saturn V engines or other questionable technology, etc...

There, fixed it for you.

[LadyTevar]

A US politician promising massive space project in a speech given in Florida to retired NASA employees? Yeah, that's going to be #1 on his agenda when elected.

There, fixed it for you.

[Sidewinder]

A US politician promising massive space project in a speech given in Florida? Yeah, that's going to be #1 on his agenda when elected.

I'd think the first step to building a lunar base, is to reform NASA, so shuttle replacement programs will NOT be bogged down by administrators' inflated projections of its performance, understatements of the $$$ needed for development, bureaucrats' understatements of the $$$ an in-service system needs, politicians' demands that it use 40-year-old Saturn V engines or other questionable technology, etc...

There, fixed it for you.

Sorry, it seems I mis-remembered some lines in Problems With The Orion Spacecraft.

[Skgoa]

I thought you were talking about the Shuttle. Orion is still just totally wacko. No one advocating it should be allowed to be employed by NASA.

[Sidewinder]

I thought you were talking about the Shuttle. Orion is still just totally wacko. No one advocating it should be allowed to be employed by NASA.

I thought I read an article blaming engineers for inflating the expected performance of space transports, including the shuttle and Project Orion. I haven't found it yet, so it's possible I mis-remembered it. Sorry.

[Rogue 9]

You lost me for a second, because the spacecraft designed to go with the Constellation program is called Orion, and it isn't particularly nuts. Most people are going to read that and think of the recent capsule design, not Project Orion.

[Guardsman Bass]

They are? Honestly, I thought of Project Orion when it was first mentioned. It wasn't until I wiki-ed "Constellation" that I found that "Orion" was part of that program.

[Lonestar]

Eh, Gingrich is mentioned enough in Zubrins books that he has nerd cred on this. Other weirdo nerd-cred: The Compost ran an article a few months back talking about where ever Newt campaigns he finangles "backstage tours"(no media) of the local zoo, because he fucking loves zoos.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't have a problem with his nerd cred, but he's got a long history of piling up heaps of mutually inconsistent Big Ideas, such that I don't trust him to carry out a promise. Again, he may want a moon base, but he also wants to cut federal tax revenues by something like a factor of two; the money's not gonna be there.

[CaptainChewbacca]

Eh, Gingrich is mentioned enough in Zubrins books that he has nerd cred on this. Other weirdo nerd-cred: The Compost ran an article a few months back talking about where ever Newt campaigns he finangles "backstage tours"(no media) of the local zoo, because he fucking loves zoos.

I don't know why, but this made me laugh really hard. Probably because I imagine him standing at a podium saying 'Yes, I can confirm it; I fucking love zoos.'

[wautd]

But a commission, appointed by Obama and chaired by retired aerospace executive Norman Augustine, said a return to the moon just wasn't financially practical -- without an extra $3 billion a year, NASA just wouldn't have the money to make it work.

That's a tough sell in today's economy.

Unless you compare it against what's being spent on the military every year, that's a lot of money.

[ComradeClaus]

Eh, Gingrich is mentioned enough in Zubrins books that he has nerd cred on this. Other weirdo nerd-cred: The Compost ran an article a few months back talking about where ever Newt campaigns he finangles "backstage tours"(no media) of the local zoo, because he fucking loves zoos.

... didn't Hitler love animals too? And he put a lot of funding into Von Brauns research.

Of course, like Hitler, Newt is a "Right-Wing Monster"

More seriously, why is it we could get faster results (from Kennedy's speech in 1961, to Armstrong's in 1969, just 8 years between Intent & Accomplishment) in the past, w/ older technology at the same time, fighting a VASTLY bloody & expensive war ('Nam) at the same time, but are helpless slugs today?

Europe is even farther away from a moon mission.

That just a couple dozen scientists in the 40's could develop something like this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aggregate_ ... 9#A9.2FA10

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/a9a11a12.htm

But since then, the strongest economy in the EU & a traditional cradle of science, has been completely barren in that regard.

...well, except for OTRAG:

http://www.astronautix.com/lvs/otrag.htm

But we all know how that sad story ended.
Kayser wasted his life pursuing an impossible dream

BTW, who owns the patents for that tech now

Why keep reinventing the wheel for space travel every couple years anyway? We know what works.

Competition is a large impetus to development & progress, something the ESA & it's unwieldly, plodding "Human Centipede" conglomerate EADS are blind to. NASA was at it's best when racing the Soviets Space Agency to the stars.

[PeZook]

More seriously, why is it we could get faster results (from Kennedy's speech in 1961, to Armstrong's in 1969, just 8 years between Intent & Accomplishment) in the past, w/ older technology at the same time, fighting a VASTLY bloody & expensive war ('Nam) at the same time, but are helpless slugs today?

Is that a serious question?

MONEY.

That's literally the only problem. NASA knows how to do it, it's a question of building and testing the right hardware, which means money.

A repeat of Apollo would take some 130-150 billion, and that simply cannot be jumped over. Especially since NASA would like to do something MORE than just another six Apollo flights.

When/if they get the money, we're going back to the Moon. But they won't, because it's not a matter of national dick-waving anymore.

[Grumman]

We know what works.

That depends how you define "works". If all you want is a sinkhole into which you can shovel the hard work of thousands of people, sure, we can return to the moon. If you want your moon base to be a net boon to humanity, you need to wait until we've got the technology to do it better.

[PeZook]

That depends how you define "works". If all you want is a sinkhole into which you can shovel the hard work of thousands of people, sure, we can return to the moon. If you want your moon base to be a net boon to humanity, you need to wait until we've got the technology to do it better.

Actually, Constellation wanted to start off with 14 day stays on the lunar surface, so we can do it. However, what Claus doesn't really see is that "we know what works" doesn't magically translate into fully fuelled Ares Vs on the launch pads...