Lunar Base Foe Romney Endorsed By Lunar Base Supporters 318
MarkWhittington writes "Mitt Romney has infamously suggested that the idea of lunar colonies is 'zany' and has ridiculed Newt Gingrich's idea of building a lunar base by 2020. However Romney has been endorsed by a group of aerospace heavyweights, including Apollo moonwalker Gene Cernan and former NASA administrator Mike Griffin, many of whom have previously supported the idea of lunar bases."
Newsflash... (Score:5, Insightful)
Romney is a liar (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:5, Insightful)
it will not happen not because it is a wacky idea, but because there's too much money to be made on earth from terrestrial wars and bank-sanctioned Ponzi-schemes.
*Cricket cricket* (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly, Obama has done a bang up job and the Republican field is piss poor and is down to a bunch of former losers. The president's job is limited, and that was done on purpose to prevent any man from having too much power. For the most part, it doesn't matter what any candidates aspirations are, because if it goes against the other political bodies it will never happen.
My dad says "Anyone but Obama", but he can't ever seem to remember a good reason why. I can think of several reasons to not vote for both Republican front-runners although honestly the ones that stick out in my mind the most have less to do with their policies and plans and more to do with the kind of people they are.
Re:Funding (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, just to be clear on this: Small deficits don't matter. Working under a small deficit means more liquidity, a stronger economy, and therefore more growth, which means you'll be able to pay off more debt later, so you can afford a bigger deficit now, meaning more liquidity...
Once you start dealing with a deficit that's bigger than what you can reasonably expect to grow, you're in deep trouble. We've been operating with far too large a deficit for far too long, made worse by the recession.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:4, Insightful)
But can you think of a reason to vote Obama back in again?
/. - Please Don't Do This. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:3, Insightful)
National deficits that have already put us into an impossible situation.
Gitmo still open.
Still in Afghanistan. Tried to keep us in Iraq.
Signed into law a bill that would allow for indefinite detention of American citizens.
Votes to lower funding for Social Security payroll taxes, making the system more insolvent than it was when he took office.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:3, Insightful)
As a Republican, I think Obama's been a terrific president.
- Kept Guantanamo open, with no sign it's closing.
- Has made nice noises about getting us out of Iraq and Afghanistan, but we're really not completely leaving any time soon.
- Has set the stage nicely for war with Iran if we want it.
- Has bailed out banks and big businesses, saving them from insolvency and the consequences of their own bad decisions and cheerfully used TAXPAYER dollars to do it.
- Has pretty much laid the legal basis for the detention of any US citizen without warrant, trial, or lawyer.
- Far from being transparent, he's conducted repeated secret strategy meetings and closed off giant chunks of the government to public scrutiny
- He's packed Washington with more lobbyists than ever, and in fact I believe he actually might have a representative from Goldman Sachs actually sleeping in bed with him and Michelle.
- He's made all sorts of platitudes toward the eco-nuts, but has prevented anything actually happening in terms of Green policies, including failing to hold anyone responsible for the massive BP disaster.
That's pretty much all the important stuff for us Republicans. I'm not sure why you Democrats think he's working for you, hell, he's great for us.
Romney is the selected candidate. (Score:5, Insightful)
Romney has won a single primary. He isn't even in the lead of delegates, but the media keep trying to shove him down our throats as if no one else is in the race.
Disagree with their politics or not, Newt, Paul and Santorum are still in this race.
LK
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:5, Insightful)
Balancing the budget most years really would be a good idea. Trying to maintain liquidity using fiscal policy doesn't really make sense; there are better ways to do that. It's true that balancing the budget every year is foolhardy, but we should probably be balanced or running a slight surplus something like five years of every seven (in harmony with the business cycle). The only deficit spending that really helps is what automatically happens in response to crises: more people come within the scope of government assistance programs and people pay less taxes because of lower income. The deficit spending that comes as a political reaction to crises is really too late to make much of a difference in the short term and is detrimental in the long run.
The basic problem is that Congresscritters have little incentive to think about what makes sense in the long run.
Re:Funding (Score:4, Insightful)
Then they can blame the "greedy" companies for the rise in prices.
It's like blaming high oil prices on oil companies. It is purely a coincidence that six of the top ten all time best profits recorded by a company in a year just happen to be Exxon. And it is entirely another coincidence that these six record busting years occurred in the last 6 years.
It's totally a coincidence that Corporate America have had 2 of their best years in history in the last couple of years. That they have more cash on hand than when... well ever. But yeah, the system is totally working. Power to the rich, they deserve it. I mean who cares if the economy goes in the shitter, as long as some people are getting richer then the system is working.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:5, Insightful)
NASA 2010 budget - $18,724,000,000 [wikipedia.org]
DoD 2010 spending - $680,000,000,000 [wikipedia.org]
There's room for a lot more spending on space if we change our priorities.
DoD spending was actually over budget in 2010.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy will literally say anything to get elected.
Seeing as how the next primary is in Florida, it seems like being for a lunar base and other NASA projects would more likely be pandering.
Newt's point is WE are not paying for it!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
they accept the idea that we (as a country) would be better off postponing something like that until we can afford it, despite how badly they would like to see it done.
Newt isn't saying we should have some giant expensive government funded plan to get a colony on the moon.
He is saying, outlay a small portion of government funds on X-Prize style contests that get the private industry heavily involved and motivated to go into space. Over time there would be a significant build up of people living on the moon for commercial purposes, and when there were enough he would welcome an application to become a state. Is that so crazy?
Regardless of other ideas, this is the best way to leverage government funds to get a desired result. Rather than spend a ton of money on well connected green energy programs (for example), it would be far better to outlay a prize for some level of target efficiency in solar panels. Then companies that can ACTUALLY PRODUCE RESULTS instead of writing applications get the money. That is a far better outcome, and it would work really well to fire up R&D across the nation with different similar proposals.
Newt has a lot of issues in other regards but at least he has vision. Romney and Obama are just politicians through and through, just a shell of promises.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama may have had no sex scandals, but neither did Bush if that's your criteria. As far as non-sex scandals go, there's Fast and Furious for a start. There's all the "green" energy companies defaulting on their federally guaranteed loans. I'm sure it's entirely coincidental that they're owned by Obama campaign bundlers [opensecrets.org] and supporters.
As far as Romney goes your complaints are:
1) He has too many children? Oh yes, how terrible that he has five children all of whom have bachelors degrees and four of which have post-graduate degrees. What a rotten place the world would be if everyone supported their children and instilled in them the necessary work ethic to finish college and graduate school and become doctors and entrepreneurs.
2) He doesn't pay an high enough percentage in taxes? He pays about 15%, which is higher than 80% [cnn.com] of the tax payers in the country. In 2009 (the last year that the IRS has stats up for) there were 58,603,938 tax returns filed without any taxable income. I'll take the guy paying 15% over the 58 million who are paying between -6% (yes, there are people with a negative effective tax rate, i.e. they receive a larger refund than they had withheld during the year) and 0%.
3) The average effective income tax rate for households earning over $200,000 is only 9.9%. Add in FICA and that tax rate will still just be topping 13%. If you pay higher than 15%, then either I congratulate you on your exceptionally high earning or seriously recommend that you find a financial adviser.
4) Charitable giving is opaque? Huh? If you want to know where your money is going, then charitable giving is your best bet as you have total control of who you give to and you can select recipients that have just as much transparency as you desire.
5) Only about 60% of Romney's declared charitable giving went to the LDS church. The other 40% went elsewhere. Regardless I find it amazing that you can complain about the LDS church. Sure they may be wealthy on a per capita basis, but why? It's not because they're penny pinchers as they do copious amounts of charitable works and disaster relief. Remember these are a group of people who walked out of the United States because multiple attempts to settle down and do their own thing ended up in their homes being burned, their leaders being murdered and their land and chattels stolen. They crossed half the continent and settled in the middle of the desert next to a lake full of water they couldn't drink. And still they are thriving. Why? Because they believe in family, hard work, education and self-reliance. And you don't want people to look up to that?
That's quite some villain.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
Um yeah maybe, I know what TANSTAFFL means but that was in 1970 and the world is a bit different now. If Iranian forces on the moon lobbed a rock at NYC the US would obliterate Tehran before the rock was half way here. The throwing rocks scenario worked because the lunar rebbels were outcasts with no relatives back home.
Additionally I reckon the US retains a military capability to operate on the lunar surface and in low lunar orbit, even if this capability does not add up to the ability to create a civilian presence there.
The lessons from Apollo were learned and the technology was relatively simple. I doubt enemy forces could dig themselves in fast enough to survive bomardment from Earth and retain the capability to fight back.
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
Interestingly, the one who is the closest is O. The reason is that he is pushing private space for getting there. Newt is correct that we can be there within 2 terms if we push private space. The reason is that we have the base itself mostly done (bigelow and IDC Dover). Combine with that the work that has been done on the ISS.
So, what is missing? Heavy launch, transportation to/from lunar surface and a way to fund it. Yet, this is trivial.
Multiple companies are now working on VTVL. What is needed is a competition for these to lift 20 tonnes to 100Km or more and land it under power on earth. Then do this 5 x without a re-build.
Hold a COTS-SHLV for 2 vehicles that will take up 125 tonnes to LEO. Each vehicle will be given 5 billion for development, and must costs below
How much would this cost? A fraction of what SLS will costs to develop. Interestingly, once this is going, it is cheap to go. Why? Because it is private space. They sell trips to the moon for multiple nations, including America.
Re:*Cricket cricket* (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Deficits deficits deficits (Score:0, Insightful)
Re:It's just more Romney pandering. (Score:4, Insightful)
On May 25, 1961, John F. Kennedy committed the United States of America to landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth, by the end of the decade (1970). On July 16, 1969, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Mike Collins lifted off from Cape Kennedy. Four days later, Neil and Buzz landed the "Eagle" in the Sea of Tranquility. When Kennedy made that speech, the experts in the field were convinced he was out of his mind: the United States had not yet put a man in orbit. (John Glenn, Mercury-Atlas 6, 20 Feb 1962. Wikipedia has its uses sometimes.) It was at that time known that men COULD be put in orbit and recovered safely (Yuri Gagarin, 12 April 1961), but that was about it.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked the United States Navy, at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. V-J day was August 15, 1945. (There was this small matter in Europe that had to be handled first.) Take a look sometime at the number of new airplanes that were developed, flown, and fielded in quantity during those four years. Take a look at the electronics development that took place.
Eight years is longer than you realize.
Actually, he makes sense... (Score:4, Insightful)
Building a Moon base/colony without a sustainable infrastructure to support it would be wildly expensive and wasteful. We need low cost transportation to space, and to learn how to "live off the land" (extract energy and materials in space).
The Moon is big and obvious in the night sky, but it is not the closest place in in terms of fuel to reach. Some near Earth objects have lower delta-V to get to, and all of that delta-V can use efficient electric thrusters instead of inefficient chemical ones for Lunar lander rockets. The first thing you want to extract from NEOs is fuel, but you can get 98% of everything you need to support yourself in space by mining and chemical extraction. The remaining 2% comes from Earth, but combined with launch costs that are not measured in their weight in precious metals, then you can afford a Lunar base, not before.