Tells Space Coast He Accepts 'Grandiose' label
Certain places in America seem to trigger pandering by
politicians more than others. In 2008, former Massachusetts
Governor Mitt Romney promised a crowd in Detroit a $20 billion
bailout for the domestic auto industry if he was elected. This
week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich spoke to aerospace
industry leaders on Florida's Space Coast, and proposed a
Kennedy-esque commitment to return to the Moon, not just to visit,
but to establish a manned base.
Reuters reports Gingrich Wednesday outlined a space policy
initiative that would cut NASA's bureaucracy and expand on
private-sector space programs, an approach recently championed by
President Obama. But he added, "We want Americans to think boldly
about the future. By the end of my second term, we will have the
first permanent base on the moon and it will be American."
Perhaps taking notice of early groundwork already being put in
place by private-sector space companies, he added, "We will have
commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and
manufacturing, because it is in our interest to acquire so much
experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the
Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to
matching."
Gingrich also said he'd devote ten percent of NASA's $18 billion
budget to prizes for competitions which encourage innovation. That
would be $1.8 billion, a massive increase over the few million
currently spent by NASA on such activities.
The former Speaker also promised he'll be unafraid to defend the
plan politically. "I'm prepared to invest the prestige of the
presidency in communicating and building a nationwide movement in
favor of space. If we do it right, it'll be wild and it will be
just the most fun you've ever seen."
Gingrich was asked to defend the plan at Thurday night's debate
in Jacksonville, FL. The former Speaker said he stood by his
statement, and that it would be private companies that would be
carrying the lion's share of the financial obligation to establish
the colony.
During a debate in Florida on Monday, Romney said he believes
there should be a vision for NASA, but offered no specifics. At
Thurday night's debate, Romney said if he were on the board of
directors of a company, and the CEO came to him and said he or she
wanted to spend mutiple billions of dollars to establish a colony
on the moon, that executive would be fired.