Newt Gingrich Wants To Put A Colony on the Moon

by Christian Chiakulas


And if your natural response was to laugh at that notion, congratulations, you're still sane.  In a speech given in Florida, Newt spent a lot of time outlining his plans for space colonization.  He said that by 2020, the end of his second term (because, as we all know, Newt is going to win the election and a second term), "...we will have the first permanent base on the moon. And it will be American."  Newt also said that if we can manage to have 13,000 Americans permanently living in said moon colony, then it can apply for statehood, making it the 51st state in our Union.


Let's look at some numbers here.  The least populated state, Wyoming, has about 568,000 people in it.  That's the population of Moontopia (if we have a state on the moon, I will not rest until it's named 'Moontopia') times 43.  I live in the town of River Forest, Illinois, and we have almost 12,000 people.  An entire state barely bigger than my quaint little River Forest, is baffling.  Some other obvious pitfalls of having a state on the moon can be read here.  I don't want to repeat them, so check it out.
Here are the real problems, though.  This man, Mr. Gingrich, has called out Barack Obama for being "out of touch with reality."  Let that sink in for a second.


More numbers.  Know how much just a four-man permanent moon base would cost?  The mission alone, not including the rocket, would cost about $35,000,000,000 (that's thirty-five billion) at conservative estimates. To have that operational by 2020, NASA would need to spend over 4 billion dollars a year, over 25% of their annual budget.  Then, in order to keep a permanent base of four people operational, NASA or the US government would have to spend 7.4 BILLION DOLLARS ANNUALLY.  Who's paying for this, exactly?  In the middle of an economic recession (things are getting better, thanks Mr. Obama, but slowly) with high unemployment rates and a myriad of domestic and international problems, what the fuck is he even thinking, wanting to spend billions and billions of dollars on a fucking moon colony?  Those figures I mentioned were for a four-man station.  Extrapolate that not just by population (the cost goes up to 24 trillion dollars a year) but by the costs of communications, supplies, food, research into better living conditions, etc.  Again, these are all conservative estimates, my friends.  This much money just doesn't exist, anywhere.  How fucking stupid can Newt be?  Did he even bother to fact-check any of the bile spewing from his mouth?


Oh, wait.  He was talking about this in Florida's Space Coast, which according to that article I linked above, has "been hit hard by NASA budget cuts."  Meaning, that this bullshit was a last-minute, desperate, and quite frankly pathetic appeal for Florida voters.  Newt Gingrich, you are a joke.


Hopefully it'll be Obama-Romney for the 2012 Presidential Race.