Living on the moon is not lunacy
Living on the moon is not lunacy
Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich wants to create a lunar colony that he says could become a U.S. state. There's his grand research plan to figure out what makes the human brain tick. And he's warned about electromagnetic pulse attacks leaving America without electricity.
To some people, these ideas sound like science fiction. But mostly they are not.
Several science policy experts say the former House speaker's ideas are based in mainstream science. But somehow, Gingrich manages to make them sound way out there, taking them first a small step and then a giant leap further than where other politicians have gone.
Returning to the moon and building an outpost there is not new. Until three years ago, it was U.S. policy and billions of dollars were spent on that idea.
Staying on the moon dates at least to 1969 when men first walked on the moon. Back then, a government committee recommended that NASA first build a winged, reusable space shuttle followed by a space station and then a moon outpost. In 1989, President George H.W. Bush proposed going to the moon and staying there.
Sixteen years later, in 2005, his son, President George W. Bush, proposed a similar lunar outpost, phased out the space shuttle program and spent more than $9 billion designing a return to the moon program.
George Washington University space policy director Scott Pace, who was NASA's associate administrator in the second Bush administration and is a Romney supporter, said the 2020 lunar base date Gingrich mentioned was feasible when it was proposed in 2005.
But it is no longer, felled by funding cuts and President Barack Obama's decision to cancel the program. Pace said it would be hard to figure out when NASA could get back to the moon, but that such a return is doable.
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- Posted on January 31, 2012
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I think that it would be so much fun to live in space. I used to love this movie called Zeon, it was about a girl who lived in space with her parents! This is when I first wanted to go into space. I wonder how they would keep air in the rooms and get food and water supplied?
The main point of this article is that someone wants to return to the moon and build an outpost there for it to someday become a U.S state. However, it is no longer funded and the President has decided to cancel the program. This information affects me today because I can think about ways to find money to do this and if it is a good idea or not. This information will affect me in the future because one day the moon could be the United States 51st state!
I've always wanted to live on the moon, and now seeing that it's a possibility, this rocks. people will need lots of oxygen though. I wonder how they'll keep the oxygen in the building, if they can, and in wonder how much the oxygen will cost. i also wonder how they'll be able to bring the water and oxygen so frequently though, so maybe its a bad idea.
Really? This is a big waste of money. Why a moon colony? This is just a big waste of money and a bad idea. I think we should focus on getting to Mars, not creating a moon colony worth billions of dollars. Going to Mars will also cost billions of dollars, but it will be for a good purpose. Besides NASA shut down. If we want NASA to help us, they need to start up again and the government needs to pay NASA even more money. This is a big waste of money.
This guy is stupid. Our country is already in debt by billions of dollars. This would at least.. take about a couple billion dollars. He can spend his money and go and fly himself to the moon. We will check on him in about 20 years:)
That would be a complete waste of money. In a country in debt, do we really need to spend in on "extra" stuff? We should be trying to pay off our debt, not build a moon colony. We also don't really need to go back to the moon. We have already been there and we are now trying to go to Mars. I think that the moon does not need to have any permanent permanent residence, only visitors.
I think it would just be wierd to be living or even just looking at the Planets all day long. Maybe you get so excited to see and what it looks like up there but when people have interest or think that it is safe up there. They might be crazy or just "too" interested in it. I also think that this program may have seemed to complicated for us and for the president. NASA is an awesome program and how much technology they use makes it seems safe but when our state doesn't approve of it, it's strange.
When I was younger, around age 10, I used to LOVE to watch the Space Shuttle launch, and the idea of a permanent outpost on the Moon just sounds so awesome, it even overshadows most of the Space Shuttle's highlights in my opinion! Now when they succeed on the Moon colony, I bet the next project will be a colony on Mars, which is actually pretty feasible if we have the right concepts and the right minds working on the project! One of these days, I look forward to seeing that on the news- NASA Starts Successful Moon Outpost!
Comment: I wish I could live on the moon, I think it'd be pretty Colleen, but it kind of seems like it would be creepy because we're not 100 percent sure that mornings there. They just say there isn't anything, but they don't have any proof.
this is just a thought but where would they get all the money to have people live on the moon. he first thing that came to my mind when i read "live on the moon" was are they really going to be able to do what they can do on earth but then i thought about it more not only would it be diffrent from earth but we would learn somthing new that we would have said could never in our lives happen.